Comparison of Palm Antivirus Applications
Recently, there has been alot of controvery over the ability of palm antivirus programs to remove palm viruses.

I have decided to compare 3 of the major players and post the results for this week's issue of Bob's Palm Blog.

First of all, Mini Antivirus. An interesting feature of Mini Antivirus is the integrated firewall. This will be increasingly useful as more palm users switch over to faster always on connections like EVDO.

I load my palm Treo 650 with Mini Antivirus and the 4 palm viruses in the wild. Phage, Vapor, Liberty, and the most deadly of all PEMagic.

It found and removed all 4 viruses, and scan was very fast. So I'll give it a score of:

• 40/40 for finding all of the viruses (10 points each)


• 5/10 for the appearance and usability


• +5 for the very very fast scan


• +10 for the firewall

60

Next up, Pocket Antivirus. Pocket Antivirus is the only palm antivirus program to offer wireless updates. This really sets it apart from the competition.

I loaded Pocket Antivirus and the four viruses mentioned earlier onto my Treo and Pocket Antivirus removed all 4 viruses during the hotsync. Pocket Antivirus' Hotsync Protection feature scans files and applications as they are being transfered to the device.

I later disabled Hotsync Protection and loaded the 4 viruses onto my Treo again, Pocket Antivirus removed them all but the scan time wasn't as impressive as Mini Antivirus. It took about a minute to scan my entire device.

Also, I should note the appearance for Pocket Antivirus is by far the best. It actually makes use of color and hiresolution graphics unlike Mini Antivirus, and Bit Defender Antivirus for Palm OS; not that's really important in an antivirus product.

So the score for Pocket Antivirus is:

• 40/40 for finding all of the viruses (10 points each)


• 10/10 for the appearance and usability


• +10 for Hotsync Protection


• +10 for wireless updates

70

Lastly, Bit Defender Antivirus for Palm OS. It's not much to look at, and it doesn't come with any special features, but it is small --too small some might say, only 4kb-- and it's free.

I loaded Bit Defender Antivirus for Palm OS onto my Treo 650 along with the 4 viruses I've mentioned, Vapor, Liberty, Phage, and PEMagic.

The scan was about the same speed as Pocket Antivirus but it only found Vapor and Phage.

You still get more than you pay for with this one (since it's free).

The score is:

• 20/40 for finding all of the viruses (10 points each)


• 5/10 for the appearance and usability


• +10 for being free

35

In conclusion, Pocket Antivirus is best (at $19.95), Mini Antivirus is a close second (also sells for $19.95) and the firewall feature might make it better for some users, and Bit Defender Antivirus for Palm OS is quite a bit out of date both in it's design and it's virus protection capabilities.

Here are screenshots from each program:



Product links:

Mini Antivirus - http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&platformId=1&productId=160511
Pocket Antivirus - http://www.jsjsoftware.com/product.php?id=1
BitDefender Antivirus for Palm OS - http://www.johannrain-softwareentwicklung.de/e_bd_palm_os_antivirus_freeware.htm