Re: how will i protect my phone from viruses
I don't exactly trust Microsoft anymore on the security end. MSE & Windows Defender have both drastically gone down hill in the last few years. I really wish Microsoft would increase it's market share as far as smartphones go. Then maybe the various security software companies will start making products to protect Microsoft's phone o.s. I won't bother calling it Windows Phone, as the Phone portion of the name is being dropped in the upcoming year.
I don't blame you in particular, but Windows Phone is a very different beast than its much more permissive predecessor and rival, Windows Mobile and Android respectively.
Windows Phone, by nature, handles things much more securely. Apps are for the most part sandboxed and can't go touching other things.
Windows Phone 8 has yet to be jailbroken or rooted. (except the Samsung ATIVs, where an exploit came from one of Samsung's system apps IIRC, but it has since been fixed)
You have the people who targeted Phone 7, and others, but not much has really happened yet.
Since Windows Phone is much more locked down, it is much more secure. It's goes both ways. With my Galaxy, I can do all these system things and tweaks that my Lumia can only dream about. But on the flip side, there's more to go wrong and potential attack vectors. Such is freedom.