Your Phone May Not Need Antivirus Software

Antivirus software has gotten a beating lately in the news, mostly since it has struggled to find and contain some of the bigger malware attacks recently.


Antivirus Not Necessary on Smartphones?


Then there is the realization that antivirus software isn't much use to consumers who do a lot of their computing on smartphones. This is important, as many consumers today read email messages, surf the Web and access social media through their smartphones. If antivirus software isn't actually helping these folks, then the antivirus industry is losing out on a lot of prospects.


Smartphones vs. PCs


First, modern smartphones operate differently than traditional PCs and laptops. On a smartphone, each app receives its own work environment and is not able to access the data found in other apps. This is certainly a nice security upgrade from the world of PCs and laptops. Malware that is just installed onto a smartphone will be able to do little harm. So there's the first strike against traditional antivirus software: there's not as much need for it on a smartphone.


One other reason antivirus software is not great for smartphones is that current antivirus software can’t scan these separate systems. That is why existing antivirus software does little to combat any malware on smartphones.


Smartphone Antivirus Programs


Although there are many reasons why current antivirus software is not very effective for smartphones, it doesn’t stop companies from offering it. One example of this is VirusBarrier. This program is available in Apple’s App Store. The funny thing about this is that it can’t really scan anything on a smartphone. Instead users must send email attachments to VirusBarrier from within their mail program for it to function. So, you can observe, that there is very little reason for consumers to spend their money on antivirus software for their smartphones. Companies must come out with more advanced software that can scan all of the smartphone systems for antivirus software to be relevant.

>