Samsung Galaxy Note I717 Newbie w/ Questions

[Ledee]

New to the board. I am certain this question has been asked but I could not seem to find the answer while browsing the forum. I apologize for any redundancy.

I recently purchased a Samsung Galaxy Note I717 from AT&T. I had to place my contract with AT&T on a military deployment suspension due to me currently being deployed overseas. I had to unlock my phone to use a local providers SIM card which has been working just fine but as I have familiarized myself with the phone I have noticed a few things which has left me wanting to ask some questions. For one I noticed that in the APP store antivirus wares are available which tells me that the OS is vulnerable to viruses. Correct me if I am wrong but that cannot be good. Is there an antivirus that is known to be THE BEST for my phones OS? Also, my phone came with many AT&T applications along with 3rd party applications which I really do not need but for some reason I do not get the option to uninstall them. I am only authorized to uninstall the APPS I have recently downloaded and have installed myself. Is there a solution to this? I take it that these smart phones are somewhat like PC

 

[Vicdude]

Hi dude,
I can't answer all of your questions but i'll have a go at some of them

Contracting a virus onto your phone is a subjective matter. If you treat the phone like you would a computer, you'll find that you won't need specific protection products. That means for example, don't just download stuff willy nilly... read the reviews, look at the screen shots and get a "feel" for what you are about to put on the phone. Only download through recognised app stores, don't open email attachments on your phone if you don't recognise the subject matter etc etc etc.
I've had android phones for about 3 years and never had a problem. Yes I might have just been lucky but in reality I suspect, common sense is one of the best protection apps you can ever own
Secondly, all of those apps on your phone that you cannot delete are collectively known as bloatware. Apps installed by the carrier which when accessed will attempt to entice you to buy further products from the network OR even worse, will sneakily only use your data connection instead of wireless in a bid to get you to exceed your data allowence
Unfortunately you cannot remove them without performing a procedure known as "rooting". This tends to be the domain of naturally talented and inquisitive users and you'll find plenty of info on this subject elsewhere on this forum.
I hope that helped

 

[flame angel]

You could try an app named "SD maid" to clean up some redundant files in your phone. it's free in the Google market anyway.