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Being smart with your smartphone

by Bernard Sinai · Published January 28, 2011 · Updated March 20, 2017

Nokia 5230

I recently became the proud owner of a Nokia 5230 phone. The great thing about the Nokia range of Symbian® devices is their ability to be customized. This has led to thousands of freely available applications, themes, wallpapers etc that you can download for your phone. Unfortunately, this has also increased the risk of malicious programs being installed in your phone.Now to be on the safe side I suggest taking certain precautionary measures:

As soon as you get a new phone download and install an anti-virus for your device. I installed and use NetQin Mobile Anti-virus and Net Guard.
Download only from trusted sources. For Nokia users, Ovi Store provides the best resource for your phone applications. You can also join forums like Mobile9 or Zedge to access a large repository of wallpapers and ring-tones.
Install anti-theft software; with the increase in stolen mobile being sold openly in the streets, installing such an application provides security and peace of mind that your data, contacts etc will not be accessed in the event that your phone is stolen. However, this does not prevent people from access files and data stores on your microSD card. Currently, I am using F-Secure Anti-Theft.

Anyway, I hope these tips have given you a fair idea on how to secure your Smart-phone. Remember, be the smart one, just because your phone is called a Smart-phone doesn’t mean that it can think.