ESET Mobile Antivirus Beta Review

The makers of the NOD32 antivirus product have released a beta of their Eset Mobile Antivirus for Windows Mobile phones this month.  Eset has always promised speedy solutions with little footprint on system resources, and they've done it again with Eset Mobile Antivirus.  The program downloads and installs quickly, has a very straightforward and simple user interface and had no noticeable impact on device performance.

The beta version of Eset Mobile Antivirus doesn't appear to monitor data traffic or perform any firewall functions like most of its competitors.  While the product is called Mobile Antivirus, it is not clear if comprehensive scanning of all types of malware is performed.  The current feature set appears to be lacking compared to competitors.  However, the Eset website states "ESET Mobile Antivirus currently provides on-access protection and the ability to run on-demand scans. Additional features

and functionality will appear in subsequent builds."

The performance of the Eset Mobile Antivirus product was right in line with their entire product line.  The footprint was very small and performance wasn't affected on my HTC Mogul.  I was curious to see if the product was running, so I checked the interface to find that more than 4,000 files had been scanned in the first 24 hours of use.  Running an on-demand scan of the entire device was extremely quick, scanning more than 1,600 files in less than two minutes.

The current free beta is fully functional and can be updated via the Internet, making it a pre-release steal.  Eset has not released any pricing estimates on the retail version.

Download and installation was a breeze.  I pointed the Internet Explorer browser on my Sprint HTC Mogul to the proper link, and the 367k file downloaded amazingly fast.  The installation process went through with few prompts, which will probably change on the retail release as it was sans EULA.  I wasn't prompted after the installation was finished, leaving me a bit confused on whether the install was successful or not.  I browsed to my Applications folder and saw an icon to the program, which launched with no issues.

The user interface was streamlined and straight-forward.  Real-time scanning was disabled by default, requiring IT departments to manually configure each device post-installation.  An "Update Now" button was clearly visible from the main screen, but scheduled automatic updates will probably render this feature seldom used. 

Whether this device is a full antimalware solution is not yet evident.  If other threats exist that are not covered by this product at the time of final release, purchasing an additional solution may be necessary for complete coverage.  Eset has stated that more features will be available in future builds of the beta.

Eset's Mobile Antivirus product lives up to the company's philosophy of efficient security software. Major competitor Trend-Micro and Symantec both offer a mobile security product with integrated anti-spyware and firewall for $29.99. Other vendors monitor data traffic, protect against SMS spam and clearly state anti-spyware on their feature list. When this product hits full release, pricing and final features will dictate whether the cost justifies the lightning-fast performance.

NOTE FROM MANAGING EDITOR

As a result of this review, ESET added SMS spam filtering capabilities to the latest release of Mobile Antivirus and have informed us that additional functionality will be added to future releases. This will serve to make an already well-rounded and effective product even better.

Kaspersky Anti-virus Mobile, Airscanner mobile antivirus, Symantec Mobile Antivirus, Trend Micro Mobile Security