t has come to my attention that a few people purchase anti-virus software for Palm-powered devices. Buying virus defence for the Palm is much like buying premium insurance for a boy’s 50 watt toy motorcycle. Even free software, which claims to offer strong virus protection, will most likely hog resources for no justified reason.

In practical terms, anti virus software for Palm handhelds is utterly unnecessary. There are two known Palm viruses, which are “proof of concept”; nothing has been shown to be malicious beyond this fabricated illusion. Such viruses are created by anti-virus developers and vendors in order to create a scare and prove that Palm handhelds are potentially penetrable. The viruses have not been found “in the wild” yet and this state is unlikely to change any time soon. Remember that Palm handhelds have remote access capabilities (SSH, telnet, VNC etc.) but do not yet allow access and control from the outside. It is simply not practical because they are mobile — it is their nature to be the controlling device (master), not the controlled device (slave). You can use your remote control to affect your TV, but not the TV to affect your remote control.

There are a couple of Trojans which depend on naivety of the users. Most experienced users, however, are wise enough avoid downloading, installing, and running software which was acquired from some obscure Web site. If such applications are run, they can wreak their havoc but cannot spread from one handheld to another. Therefore, they are not infectious like the most devastating viruses which Windows users have become familiar with.

Similar selling tactics were used on the PC in the older days. Viruses like “Pong” scared users who would then purchase protection from the same people that introduced the illness in the first place. The bottom line is: do not bother with anti virus software for Palm.

Cited by: PalmAddict

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2005 at 5:23 am and is filed under Palm, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.