Android is currently the world’s largest smartphone operating system and among the different versions of the OS, Android 2.3 Gingerbread and its variants were on top for the longest time. Now new statistics available from Android Developers suggest that Android 4.x has finally overtaken Gingerbread.

Although Gingerbread still accounts for 44.2% of all the devices shipping with Android, Android 4.x and its versions are slightly ahead with 45.1% of active use. What’s good news for Google is that Android 4.1/4.2 Jelly Bean is active on 16.5% of users, which suggests two things: the latest Android handsets are becoming more successful on carriers and more users might be getting updates from their carriers.

We can’t say for sure whether Jelly Bean or any other version will become as popular as Gingerbread. Earlier, OEMs had to spend more time with Gingerbread since Honeycomb was designed specifically for tablets, and also many old devices weren’t upgradeable to Android 4.0. At present, manufacturers can choose either ICS or Jelly Bean, and later this year Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie is expected to come out. By that time, these numbers will be totally different.

And just in case you didn’t notice, Froyo and Eclair are still up there with a combined 9.6% of active use. Which one are you using at the moment?

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A new report from Kaspersky Labs has now surfaced suggesting that if you are still stuck on the aging Android 2.3 Gingerbread, you might want to watch your back carefully when it comes to malware.

Kaspersky states that Gingerbread 2.3.6 is specifically the most targeted version of Android when it comes to malware and Trojan SMS programs. Before you get too excited, Kaspersky Labs did state that the amount of malicious apps for Android devices have dropped down considerably this year. Earlier this year there were reportedly 14,923 malware modifications out there in the wild, though now that number has dropped down to 9,130. New versions of Android have a lot less to worry about, suggests the information from the antivirus/security firm.

Should you be worried at all if you are an Android 2.3 user? If you are smart about how you use your phone or tablet, you have a lot less to worry about, but bad things can happen. I personally own a smartphone running on Android 2.3 and have never ran into a single problem.

Why is that? I use only Google Play– and occasionally the Amazon AppStore. Many Android critics out there love to point out how insecure the Android/Google ecosystem is, but honestly this is only half-true. Sure, because Android can be modified and used however anyone sees fit, it is subject to security issues. That being said, the actual number of malware and exploits found DIRECTLY in the Google ecosystem (that means ONLY the Google Play Store) has dropped down to almost nothing this year.

Keep away from third party sites and only side-load apps from trusted sources. Pay attention to strange texts asking you to download random updates and files. If you do that, Android security shouldn’t be an issue.

As someone who has an iPad, an Android tablet, Windows devices and an Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone— they all have their pros and cons. For Android, security might be a bit of an issue, but most of the problems can be avoided. Any Android users out there ever had a problem with malware personally? If so, was it from using an unofficial marketplace or did you run into the problem directly from Google Play?

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One more sample of Viewsonic’s latest offerings coming out of CES is the ViewPhone 3. The significant feature of this Android 2.3 smartphone will probably be its dual-SIM capability and low price point of $279 unlocked.

On all accounts, this mid-market phone showed pretty bad lag when swiping between screens or scrolling. It supposed to hit Latin American markets at said $279 later this quarter, and it will be the first Viewsonic phone there. We can only hope it won’t be the last.

I can’t say how good the sales of ViewPhones 1 and 2, I really don’t know so its a mystery how well Viewsonic’s mobile division is fairing against the Huawei’s and other lower tiered manufacturers. Maybe, there are some markets where these were doing just fine, and maybe this 3.5″ 800 MHz single-core ARM Cortex A8 based phone will be a hit there. But from a sample for this CES 2012, there’s nothing exceptional about the phone except for its dual-SIM capability. Two SIMs allow for both business and work use on the same device, and there’s HSDPA connectivity along with WiFi and Bluetooth, and that’s practically all that goes for it.

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