i am currently searching some apps to help you locate your phone.
both ios and blackberry have free apps that lets you ring, wipe, send message, lock and locate via gps your phone. even blackberry has the added feature that will backup your data, and can even be configured to do it automatically or just over wifi.
what options do we have on android? for what i have searched there is "where's my droid" that has some basic features with sms but due to a recent android restriction it cannot turn on gps
Lookout Mobile Security
Motoblur actually has a device locator and remote wipe built in.
https://portal-blur.svcmot.com/blur-web-portal/
My only issue with that is if someone gets ahold of your phone they can wipe it really fast and than your sol. With lookout you can at least lock the phone so no one can use it
LancerV said:
My only issue with that is if someone gets ahold of your phone they can wipe it really fast and than your sol. With lookout you can at least lock the phone so no one can use it
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Click to collapse
not if you already have a lock on your phone via fingerprint scanner or pin
Wavesecure also works good.
http://preyproject.com/
Prey works quite well.
Prey..
but a very lightweight one..
TheftAlarm... is a pretty small one lol. not a lot of functions but.. it checks on anyone who puts a random sim on your phone.
Someone else mention Motoblur and I have to say this is the best option.
Combined with any type of screen lock, fingerprint scanner or the standard locks, you would be safe and sound. If someone tries and switches out the sim card, the phone goes into lockdown until your motoblur account name and password are entered.
You can track the phone and remote wipe it all from their website similar to apple's mobile me.
Prey is a good option, but not as reliable on the tracking portion I think. It does have however a nice lockdown feature.
I've always used MobileDefense but I noticed no one here even mentioned that so perhaps it's really not all that great?
MotoBLUR's tracking with Autowipe (free) from the Market is winning in my book.
Motoblur couldn't locate my phone. Just kept searching for a while and then it just stopped.
Is gps on?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
this is a cool feature.
motoblur would be perfect if it could turn on gps. Pretty sure lookout has the ability to turn on gps for you. Also has a pretty neat tool called plan b that can install and report location after your device goes missing.
As of right now I have my gps on at all times. If I eventually turn it off I will switch from motoblur to lookout.
tonman23 said:
motoblur would be perfect if it could turn on gps. Pretty sure lookout has the ability to turn on gps for you. Also has a pretty neat tool called plan b that can install and report location after your device goes missing.
As of right now I have my gps on at all times. If I eventually turn it off I will switch from motoblur to lookout.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could also use androids web store to push programs, but not sure if it would auto work or not
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
it will def. work with the "plan b" application because it is designed to be pushed out through the web store after the fact. It installs remotely and even enables gps for you. Within 10 minutes it emails your google address with the location of the phone. If it doesn't work after ten minutes you can send a text to your phone with the word "locate" to force it.
haven't tried it but I like the idea
Hey there, I want to secure myself in case I get robbed, so that I can get back my phone.
What are the best apps out there? Preferably something free, and for non-root phones (which is my case)...
Also, is any app able to track where my phone is with it turned off for example? Because if the thief's smart enough, I think the first thing he will do will be to turn it off...
The one I've always gone with is Lookout Security & Antivirus. No Root Required. A lot of features even on the free app. Has the MISSING Device Locator.
Right now it looks like Cerberus is still great - or should we take a good look at Avast and Kaspersky as well?
Prey got a lot of press hype, but it seems like on android it can't take pictures of the thief? Can cerberus be forced to use the front camera?
Confirmed that Cerberus can take pictures with the front camera. I tested it when I first installed it and it works very well. It even flashes to a bright white screen for a second in case of low light conditions.
Try Androidlost.
I found it much, much better.
Romonster said:
Try Androidlost.
I found it much, much better.
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Click to collapse
What he said
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Romonster said:
Try Androidlost.
I found it much, much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. So you would say this is better than Cerberus? In which ways?
1. It's absolutely free.
2. Uses your Google account, no need to create another account for app and no battery drain.
3. More features- pull last 50 messages and browse/download/delete sdcard contents remotely.
Considering I got Cerberos for free during their giveaway, it's serving me very well. I particularly like the five devices I can track with it; makes me feel better about taking both my phone and tablet into public.
How effective are anti-theft apps?
Do any of these anti-theft apps prevent a factory reset or a ROM flash?
Have any independent comparisons been published?
How does SamsungDive compare to the likes of Prey et al?
I think Avast Mobile Security is a pretty good bet, allows SMS only management, and system installation so goes to the rom.
Respect to flashing the device, I think regardless on any anti theft software (cerberus, androidlost, avast mobile security) you can start the device in Recovery mode and flash a new rom, wipe cache & data and such. That is because the recovery prevails over the operating system because loads first when demanded.
AndroidLost
Win
HairyScot said:
Do any of these anti-theft apps prevent a factory reset or a ROM flash?
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Click to collapse
scandiun said:
I think Avast Mobile Security is a pretty good bet, allows SMS only management, and system installation so goes to the rom.
Respect to flashing the device, I think regardless on any anti theft software (cerberus, androidlost, avast mobile security) you can start the device in Recovery mode and flash a new rom, wipe cache & data and such. That is because the recovery prevails over the operating system because loads first when demanded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Avast if you allow its root options you can set the phone so that it CANNOT be data reset from the phone menus or recovery. It can block USB Debugging as well so that the phone cannot be wiped and reset that way either. You can also set Anti-Theft as an app with Admin permissions so that it cannot be uninstalled, not to mention it will run in stealth mode when active so that it doesn't appear in your apps list at all. It is also separate from the Anti-virus portion so you can uninstall that and there would be no way to tell the Anti-theft is even present on the phone.
It is amazing that it's still free, but as Avast! stated they make their money off of their PC utilities and plan to keep it free.
MissionImprobable said:
With Avast if you allow its root options you can set the phone so that it CANNOT be data reset from the phone menus or recovery. It can block USB Debugging as well so that the phone cannot be wiped and reset that way either. You can also set Anti-Theft as an app with Admin permissions so that it cannot be uninstalled, not to mention it will run in stealth mode when active so that it doesn't appear in your apps list at all. It is also separate from the Anti-virus portion so you can uninstall that and there would be no way to tell the Anti-theft is even present on the phone.
It is amazing that it's still free, but as Avast! stated they make their money off of their PC utilities and plan to keep it free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you mean the phone won't enter on recovery holding power+volup+menu? And that there won't be the option to install update from sdcard?
MissionImprobable said:
With Avast if you allow its root options you can set the phone so that it CANNOT be data reset from the phone menus or recovery. It can block USB Debugging as well so that the phone cannot be wiped and reset that way either. You can also set Anti-Theft as an app with Admin permissions so that it cannot be uninstalled, not to mention it will run in stealth mode when active so that it doesn't appear in your apps list at all. It is also separate from the Anti-virus portion so you can uninstall that and there would be no way to tell the Anti-theft is even present on the phone.
It is amazing that it's still free, but as Avast! stated they make their money off of their PC utilities and plan to keep it free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
scandiun said:
Do you mean the phone won't enter on recovery holding power+volup+menu? And that there won't be the option to install update from sdcard?
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Click to collapse
Since I have paid for Avast! on my PC maybe I should use it for my Android devices.
Would be interesting to verify if it can prevent flashing etc.
HairyScot said:
Since I have paid for Avast! on my PC maybe I should use it for my Android devices.
Would be interesting to verify if it can prevent flashing etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know, there is no such hardware locking ability on some devices, at least in my SGS2 there is no way to prevent flashing.
does this thing really work? just a newbie here.
You can install cerberus on to the root of your phone to gain two additional features that will result in cerberus still being installed even after a delete/wipe.
Link to cerberus q&a HERE
Just expand the "I have a rooted device. Can I get additional features?" topic and follow instructions
Remember when un-installing cerberus to uninstall it the proper way to avoid problems when flashing it to root, open the app login and disable admin then uninstall
ill have to check that out
Thing is if you lose your phone the best you can hope for is a quick lock via a website to track it down or protect your data (which will already be backed up)
As long as you can secure the phone and data then how much do you really want to catch a thief?
Will check these out though as being able to lock the phone down and ensure it has to be reflashed is good, but unless you use encryption not sure how any of these can really protect the data?
scandiun said:
Do you mean the phone won't enter on recovery holding power+volup+menu? And that there won't be the option to install update from sdcard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was still able to wipe data and cache after I sent a text to set it as lost, but once the phone restarted the Anti-theft app was still active so that aspect that is common to Cerberus still works at least. I'm about to see if it survives RSD.
Edit: Alrighty. As stated Anti-theft survived wipe/reset so that part holds true, and RSD is unable to function so it is preventing USB debugging access. The only thing that shows that anything out of the ordinary is going on is that you have the option to set one app as admin and it does not appear with the rest of your apps in the app drawer, but as you can name it anything that you want only someone very familiar with Avast/Cerberus would have any reason to suspect that it's an anti-theft app.
One thing that may give it away that the phone is being tracked is that an SMS goes to the device saying that it has been marked lost and depending on your network and when the thief powers off the phone it still may show up in the inbox and they could see it. Considering that many thieves may switch SIMs as soon as they get the phone though, this should be a non-issue and is covered by the forwarding and SIM-tracking portions of the App.
I would like to play with all this further, but as of now it appears that Avast pretty much performs as promised and your phone will still be trackable even if someone does a battery pull and reset. You will have to send an additional Lost SMS if you wish to lock the phone again, but you can send your other commands: SIREN ON, LOCATE, etc and it the phone will react appropriately. The LOCATE command will give you the owner name, Cell ID, Carrier, and new ID. If they change SIM cards the new SIM info will be forwarded to the two numbers you chose as friends during setup. You can do a test to make sure they'll get the message, but I would like to actually try this but my phone is CDMA only so I can't vet that out.
Declaring lost does Automatically power WIFI, GPS, and Data back on as promised. I apparently misspoke about being able to prevent access to recovery. When locked it is impossible to access the system menus on the phone, but as noted it can be wiped and reset from recovery though Avast will survive this and it looks like Cerberus should as well since it utilizes a similar method.
Don't know how much more to ask for from an anti-theft app, especially a free one. The only nice addition would be being able to lock recovery the way you can BIOS, though this may make a savvy thief more likely to toss the phone so maybe it's a good thing that they would be able to flash a new Rom via SD and the phone could still be tracked with them none the wiser.
---------- Post added at 03:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:14 AM ----------
Doallyn said:
Thing is if you lose your phone the best you can hope for is a quick lock via a website to track it down or protect your data (which will already be backed up)
As long as you can secure the phone and data then how much do you really want to catch a thief?
Will check these out though as being able to lock the phone down and ensure it has to be reflashed is good, but unless you use encryption not sure how any of these can really protect the data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All my important data is backed up so that I'm not worried about. As to the thief bit, this app is great. When it becomes clear to thieves that stealing a phone will at best result in them getting a GPS tracker that they need to toss and at worse give them something that actually lands them in jail then thefts will certainly drop off. Apps like this and Cerberus will make phone theft something that's benefits certainly do not outweigh the potential costs.
The reason Avast and Cerberus (or just any other system app) survives a wipe/factory reset is because they are in the System folder... all those apps aren't deleted when you perform a wipe...
But sure enough, if the thief flashes a new ROM from recovery then all apps are gone, nothing will survive that!
Anyway, Avast seems to be the way to go since is free ;-)
Is there any way to make an app with Device Administrator privileges such as disabling camera and monitoring lock screen attempts think that it has power over the device, even though it has no power at all? I don't think that my school will ever actually disable my camera or bother to see how many times I've screwed up my pin, but I don't like the idea that they can do that if they wanted to. I want to keep access to the corporate mail and contact list, but don't want to be paranoid. I'll install aftermarket firmware if anyone knows some that will work for me.
Please don't bother with the "talking it out with resources" approach. They've stopped responding to my emails.
Nexus 5 and Nexus 10
My phone was serviced "reprogrammed" and when it came back I keep getting ads. I tried resetting the phone but it still keeps getting adware silently installed. Is there any way to fix this?
You are not alone. Bought this phone for my mom since she likes a bigger screen to do social media stuff. The malware popped in after the last ota. The official wirelessupdate app included on the phone silently installs random apks that pushes full screen ads and impersonates clicks even if the the phone is not being used. This is common with generic android phones coming from CHINA
I haven't figured out a way to root the phone as most rooting methods will fail(because of the sucky spreadtrum SOC which makes it difficult to root the phone).SADLY, rooting is the only way to disable/uninstall the wirelessupdate app.
However, here's a workaround I found that works.
1) restrict your network to limit background data usage (Found in settings).
2) **uninstall the malware app: finding the app may be difficult as It normally disguises itself as a system app with names like radio, settings, wifi or some application name that doesn't even make sense. It uses a lot of data and is always active. You'll know its the fake app if it poses as a system app but you have the option to uninstall it(System apps cannot be uninstalled without root/Su access).
Buttt....
The wireless update will probably install another malware app after uninstalling the current one.
3)disable notification of the app so it doesnt send fake notifications to you that opens ad based webpages as it also fakes notification, posing as a fake notif from FB, whatsapp
4) force stop it and stop the services from settings so it doesn't load or push apps while you use your phone
Restarting the phone will make the app run again
5) Remove the app's permission. By default its granted access to location, settings, storage and sometimes camera or mic. The wireless app doesnt detect this and wont turn those permission back on
6) lastly, you can contact firefly support AND PRAY TO THE GOOD LORD they know know what they're doing. Because I did and they were completely clueless on the troubleshooting or on the issue itself and even blamed the problem on the user. Ridiculously stupid.
I haven't really tried ADB yet because i don't have the time and the phone lacks resources online to restore it in case I brick it. Frankly, this phone is not worth investing time fixing especially with the quality of support it has from Firefly and the price it asked for.