Airscanner Mobile Antivirus 3.0

As the Internet and personal computing has grown, the amount of computer virus and "malware" have exponentially grown as well.  Gone are the days where one could consider Antivirus software for their PC as an option.  Today it is a requirement unless you want your personal information freely available or your PC turned into a zombie for less-than-legal purposes unbeknownst to you.  While this same level of protection has not appear to be required on the Windows Mobile platform to this point, as more of the devices come into the marketplace they will become a richer target for would-be virus writers and hackers and will require some level of protection.  Simply put, there are viruses out there for the platform although they are not as prevalent as their desktop counterparts - yet.

To better understand this it is important to keep in mind the underlying differences between PCs and Windows Mobile devices.  Windows Mobile, which is based on Windows CE, is written in a different type of architecture than a PC.  This is generally referred to as x86 for PCs while for Windows Mobile it is referred to as RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer).  It is this difference in code architecture that fundamentally prevents viruses written for PCs from working on Windows Mobile devices.  For a more detailed overview of this topic, refer to Chris Tilley's article "Is Windows CE Anti-Virus?" in the August/September 2006 edition of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine (page 54).  You can also read that article online at this link.

With the inevitable day coming where Antivirus on your Windows Mobile device is going to be required and some virus' already reported to be "in the wild", Airscanner Corporation has developed Airscanner Mobile Antivirus.  The Dallas, Texas based developer has produced a well written and effective application in Mobile Antivirus with all of the features you would expect from a robust application of this nature.  This includes background scanning, memory card scanning and online updates as well as system information and registry information applets.  Even better, Mobile Antivirus is memory friendly and does not cause a significant slowdown of your device when in use.  Overall it is a great application which has earned a place in my Top 25 of must have applications.

Airscanner has been writing antivirus and other mobile applications for many years now and essentially pioneered the mobile antivirus space some four years ago.  Many of the viruses identified today have been identified by Airscanner and they have usually been the first to develop a solution against them.  Mobile Antivirus has one several industry awards over the four years it has been available and has been named a winner in Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine's Best of Awards in the security category.

Mobile Antivirus is installed on your Windows Mobile device via ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center (Windows Vista users) and requires approximately 1.5MB of storage space on your device and can be done either in your device's main memory or on a storage card.  The application is available for Windows Mobile 2003SE and 5.0 Pocket PCs and Smartphones.  It is important to note that there is a different installer for the 2003SE and 5.0 Pocket PC versions so be sure to get the correct one for your device.  The Smartphone installer is the same for 2003SE or 5.0.  Links to all of these will be provided at the end of this review.

Once installed and started, Mobile Antivirus has a clean but simple interface which is integrated well with the Windows Mobile 5.0 soft keys on the display.  To begin a device scan simply tap the "Play" icon.  As a scan is performed, you are updated on the display which directory and file is being scanned, the total number of files scanned, the number of bytes tested for viruses, the elapsed time and the number of infected files.  An animated display at the bottom of the screen gives you a visual queue that the application is running.

Figure 1:  The Mobile Antivirus Scanning Interface

The time required to scan your device will largely depend on the number of files that are on it.  The more files you have the longer it will take to scan your device and the amount of processing power you have available will effect this as well.  On my O2 Xda Atom, it took approximately 96 minutes to scan 1.1GB in 2,777 files.  On my Cingular 8525 it took approximately 28 minutes to scan 250MB in 1,082 files.  Like antivirus scanning on your desktop PC, it is best to do this at a time when you know you will not be needing your device.

A key and exciting feature in Mobile Antivirus is the ability to schedule these scans during your off hours.  By using the including scheduler, you can choose to have your device virus scanned as well as when the virus signatures are updated on your device. By using the scheduler, you can choose the time and interval that your device is scanned.

Figure 2:  The Scheduler Interface of Mobile Antivirus

In addition to the Scheduler function of Mobile Antivirus, there are other configuration changes that can be made to the application as well to enhance your experience with it.  Most of these changes are found on the Options>Configuration menu.  Some of the options include being able to enable or disable the application's splash screen on start up, start when your device starts, background scanning and manual folder selection when performing a manual scan.

Figure 3:  The Configuration Options of Mobile Antivirus

You will also see on the Options menu the ability to initiate a scan, do a manual online update and see the repository of files that have been quarantined by the scanning process.  You can also exit Mobile antivirus from this menu as well.

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