Is There An Anti Virus Program For Smartphones

[roamingguy 300291]

Still a newbie and dummy in the world of smartphones

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note (android)

Are there, or should you put an anti virus program on it, and if so, is there an app for it

If so, any preferred anti virus app

Thanks

RG

[boink 210]

There are a few different anti virus apps in the Play store. I don't use one myself.

[backrubman 64800]

This will become more of an issue over time. Yes there are several anti-virus programs for smartphones but for now I think if you carefully review any app you choose to install you may be ok. Of course anything offered for free (as an anti-virus tool) is likely malicious in and of itself. There are thousands of very useful and safe free applications.

 

Google is working hard to keep anything malicious out of the market (and harder more recently) but not doing as good a job as Apple just yet but even they have had bad stuff slip in.

 

So far I'm just very careful to read up on any app I consider installing and haven't bothered as it would consume extra resources and slow down the phone.

[TheRubicon 166]

The quality for these apps are really sketchy, and some of the ones on android devices are just malware. The release soon of the news windows ecosystem may prompt some better development of anti-virus for mobile platforms as it is designed for cross device compatibility, but anti virus tends to slow performance (I'm looking at you Norton and McAfee), and the way mobiles are put together, doesn't work so well at this time. I would bet iOS will eventually get there too. Android, probably not so much. As the previous posters noted, always research it online before you load it, both for security and for performance.

[peizo 100]

There are some good ones - Avast, namely is a good one.

 

You should check out cerberus too, it's the best "find my phone" kind of app I've seen - blows the iphone version out of the water.