VIRUS in s40- Sanou

Virus in s40

VIRUS ! ! !......
Yes, this is the word that I have seen almost everyday in forums being asked by users. And I'm getting a plenty of mails regularly asking for antivirus which I've replied the same answer. That means VIRUS is the most talked and discussed topic in forums. So I decided to explain a bit about it. Hope some new users will get an idea about virus through this topic.

I dont blame the users who ask for antivirus for s40's frequently, coz there was a time when I myself searching for an antivirus on the net in my very early days... ;-) So lets come to the point.
What is a virus?....
Mobile viruses are small programs/applications/softwares specially programmed to do harmful activities in your phone or in the file system. Those viruses are written in sis, sisx or exe format and need an operating system to run. Suppose we have made an application which is programmed to delete all image files inside file system. Now when this application runs, it automatically searches for image files and starts to delete them. This is a kind of virus/malware. Its a small example and there are many kinds of such harmful viruses which even effects the phones operating system. So the main point is, to run those viruses(programs), it needs an OS (operating system) which supports sis, sisx or exe files. And without such OS, virus files cannot do their job for which they are made for. Nokia have implemented two operating systems(so far and popular) for their mobiles. One is Symbian(s60) and other is Java(s40). Java s40 phone platform is officially known as NOKIA OPERATING SYSTEM. But technically we cannot consider it as an OS because it runs on java platform. Unlike Nokia s60, Nokia s40 phones can only run java applications. Other sis, sisx or exe files(in which language viruses are written) will show 'unsupported file type' in s40. So even if your phone gets a virus transmitted from a pc it wont work and will be inactive and or if ur phone gets a virus from another S60 phone the virus wont harm your phone as it cannot run in those java phones. So just forget about those sis, sisx or exe viruses if you are a s40 user. Now the question is,
Is there any other virus which can effect s40?....
The answer is simply NO. Let me explain. The only application supported by s40 is java and even if we make a java virus, it cannot do any harm. Why?..... Coz JAVA is limited/restricted from accessing native operating system or hardware by the highly encripted Java environment. No file execution or installation can happen without user permission due to closed source operating system of s40 phones.
Nevertheless, I have to mention and make clear one thing that, s40 can get some faulty java software which can do some harmful activities in your phone. Though we cannot call them a virus. For example, a java software can be programmed to send unlimited messages to a particular number until ur credit finishes. Those issues are talked about in many forums concerning Red Browser in s40v5 or whatever. But still, its not possible if the application is untrusted/unsigned or u haven't set the java permission to always allowed. So if you are too much concerned about those java files, please dont use any untrusted application.
As there is no virus for s40, there is no antivirus for it too. Now note one thing that there are several antivirus applications available on the net. I have personally tested/examined those apps. Believe me or not, those apps are only made to fool people showing some animations on the screen, nothing else. Please dont be a fool....lol.
Even those facts, questions may raise asking/describing some strange behaviour of a phone or a memory card which may look like a virus effect. If your phone is reacting/showing such abnormal activities, then the first possibility is a firmware problem/fault which may occur any time or a hardware damage. It can be solved by updating the firmware. To know more about firmware update, click here to read my firmware update tutorial.
And in case of a memory card problem, it could be a technical error which can be overcomed by formatting it.

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