The Android smartphone market caters to every budget segment with its range of low-end budget-phones, mid-level feature-loaded smartphones and high-end power packed smartphones. Now, you wouldn’t want your expensive phone to be stolen or data to be misused either. Needless to say, if you own an Android, it better be safeguarded against the growing number of vulnerabilities in the Android Market aka Google Play too, which have almost quadrupled in the past one year. To safeguard your device against such threats, there are a plethora of apps for Android. We’ve picked 5 such apps for our readers:
1. TrustGo Antivirus & Mobile Security
The TrustGo Antivirus Mobile security is capable of scanning your phone and SD card to remove all the malicious content – viruses, malware, spyware and trojans. Its capabilities extend beyond scanning for viruses as it can alert users about malicious websites and also monitor and manage the phone’s data/memory usage, and battery consumption. It also lets you take backup of all the data on the cloud. The device is infused with some security features too, which can lock or wipe off data remotely in case of theft.
2. Webroot Security & Antivirus:
The Webroot app has all the security features that one may look for to protect their smartphone, be it scanning for viruses, blocking unwanted calls/texts, locating a stolen/lost phone, remotely locking a device or block phishing websites. But what we liked even more is its ability to lock the device automatically if the SIM card of your phone is removed. However, this feature comes for a price and you will need to upgrade to the Pro version. The Pro version also brings in features like remotely wiping data of a lost or stolen device, battery status and power usage monitoring, and keeping a tab on prying apps.
3. Where’s My Droid:
This app is like old wine; it just gets better with each year. Open the application and you will see a neat interface with a list of setup options namely, Ring Setup, GPS Setup, Security settings, Commander and Advanced Menu. The app will let you ring your phone (even using a loud siren) incase you have misplaced or lost it, and will do so even if you have kept your phone on the silent mode. Then there is GPS setup to track and find the location of the phone. All this just needs the user to send an SMS with the ‘attention words’ (you need to setup ‘attention words’) from another phone. For instance – by default you can text ‘wmd ring’ on your misplaced phone and it will implement the Ring feature and your misplaced/stolen device will start ringing loudly. The Commander feature has been crafted to offer users complete control of the device from WheresMyDroid.com.
4. Anti-theft Droid:
Here’s another app geared to save your dainty droid. This can be called one of the best free anti-theft softwares and controls the actions of your device via text messages. It can track location of your device on net (approx) and GPS (exact). It can even automatically activate the GPS and does not have a large impact on the battery life. The phone can be viewed on the map and has a fire alarm audile anti-theft device which can be disabled only with a password. It can even identify the exchange of phone chip and sends the phone's location at the time of exchange of information in the new Chip (Carrier, IMEI, phone number (if supported by the new chip). It doesn’t require internet connection and one can even hide the antitheft Droid list of applications.
5. Trend Micro Mobile Security:
We had recently got our hands on the Trend Micro Mobile Security suite – Personal Edition for Android. In our verdict, we found it to offer good value. It locates your lost phone and displays the exact location on the map, allowing you to scream, wipe off data and lock the phone remotely. It also scans your phone for rogue apps. The premium features include the Surf, Call and Text security, which lets you toggle safe surfing, parental controls, call blocking and text blocking. All these options can be further customized.
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