Tag: antivirus

Kindle Fire HDX Antivirus – Do You Need It?

I’ve previously written about the pointlessness of antivirus protection for the Kindle Fire line of tablets (see my post, Kindle Fire Antivirus: You Still Don’t Need It), but the new HDX line of Fires adds a new wrinkle since they all come with the option for 4G cell service connectivity. In my prior posts on this topic, I discussed how some hackers target cell phones specifically to add bogus charges to the phone owners’ bills. Many, if not most, cell phone owners won’t notice small charges scattered across an entire month, but they add up quickly. Some hackers go for broke right out of the gate and try to make a single, large bogus charge to the phone owner’s bill (usually masquerading as some kind of pay-by-the-minute service, like a party line or psychic reading service). They sometimes get away with it because these types of charges are made to the phone owner’s account immediately…

Does Your Kindle Fire Need Virus Protection?

* * * Today’s post is brought to you by ESET Smart Security, the tech security product I’ve used for years and love. Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to bring you great content each day for free, so thanks for your support. * * * Note: Kindle Fire HDX owners, please see this more recent post, which is specific to the HDX line – Kindle Fire HDX Antivirus: Do You Need It? In a word, at this point in time (October 2014), assuming you haven’t hacked your Fire and don’t “sideload” apps to it, no. Not really. While it’s true that the Kindle Fire runs on the Android platform, and there have been numerous reports of hackers targeting phones that run on the Android platform, that doesn’t mean they’re also targeting your Kindle Fire. Here are the reasons why: The Kindle Fire runs on a custom, Amazon-proprietary version of…