Database Users

Best "Lost Phone" App?

I'm looking for a replacement for Mobile Defense since they seem to have discontinued their product. What's the best FREE app that will locate your phone, blast the ringer, remote wipe, etc...?
Thanks!

....
Lookout is a good app, if u set it up properly u wont even know its there yet, it does its job pretty well, no probs since mt4g came out, its free, but they recently added "premium" services, witch are really just to lock ur phone throught the site, ,, U can backup, locate, an keep virus free, for free though, you just cant lock it from online,.. also i doubt its a battery drainer, i still havent noticed any xtra battery loss

Thanks for the info. I'm looking to be able to remote wipe and remote lock and track the phone as well for free. Mobile Defense does all this but I don't think they're developing anymore and I heard there were issues with it on Froyo...

Lookout Mobile Security

Yea but Lookout charges you for the features I want...

Legaleye3000 said:
Yea but Lookout charges you for the features I want...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sometimes everything is not free. And sometimes you get what you pay for.

True, but if Mobile Defense offers all of those for free, someone else must also. I remember seeing an app that had everything for free, I just don't remember what the other app was.....

I saw this Lost Phone app. Haven't used it but it is free:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/lost-phone/com.gadgetprojects.lostphone

Wavesecure is the best!!!!!!!
When u autolock it sounds an alarm.....and when a different sim is inserted it sends text messages to numbers that u list in ur buddy list....doesn't let the person do a master reset
*Sent from my Tmobile MT4G*

When it comes to goofy apps and misc apps; free is always nice. But when it comes to security, I never compromise. Free or not, you get what you pay for.
I use the Premium version of Lookout. I used the free version for a long time and the jump was worth it.
There will always be someone who wants everything for free. Well...some things AREN'T. Get over it. Deal with it. That's the way it is.
If you want something bad enough and no-one makes it, why don't you be the first then?! Go develop a free security app that does everything you want then give it away to the rest of us who aren't complaining...
JM2C

Prey
The app you're looking for is called Prey. The company's website is PreyProject.com. I tried posting links but I can't because I'm a new user.

Legaleye3000 said:
I'm looking for a replacement for Mobile Defense since they seem to have discontinued their product. What's the best FREE app that will locate your phone, blast the ringer, remote wipe, etc...?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to clarify, Mobile Defense has not discontinued anything as I am still happily using their product. They have simply closed their open beta period (and it has been closed for quite awhile, 6 month or so). If you got in before it closed and simply had to swap phones, they have links on their website to re-download the client as long as you have a login.
You can no longer find them via the Market due to having closed their open beta period.

Please post questions in Q&A section.

chimatt said:
The app you're looking for is called Prey. The company's website is PreyProject.com. I tried posting links but I can't because I'm a new user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are several threads in the MT4G area about 'lost phone' style apps. Even though you sometimes get what you pay for, I'd rather not pay the $20-$30 per year for the ability to lock and fine my phone (as both Wavesecure and Lookout would seem to require) unless there's really no other alternative.
After reading through the recommendations in all of these threads, Prey actually looks like it might be the best in terms of offering the most features in the free version. I'd be interested in hearing more of other people's thoughts and experiences in using these apps (with consideration of their respective prices).
For now, I'm going to download Prey and I'll report back later with my thoughts.

Trip report on Prey:
So I got Prey installed on both Mytouch 4G's on my account and tried it out. The free version of the app lets you specify your phone as 'lost' via a user-defined SMS, and this worked every time. Upon sending the SMS to put the phone in 'lost' mode, you can also have the app perform several actions on the phone, including sounding an alarm, displaying a user-defined alert message, and locking the phone (with the stock android locking mechanism, but a Prey specific unlock password). These actions can be modified from he Prey website control panel (even after phone is in lost mode), and are performed a frequency of between 10 and 40 minutes while the phone remains lost. You also receive an e-mail alert when your phone is put into 'lost' mode. Prey also has the option to put itself into lost mode if the sim card is replaced.
Regarding everything above, Prey seems to work great. A couple things to be aware of though: when the alarm sounds on your phone, it starts at the loudest volume but can be reduced in volume to zero with the rocker on the side of your phone even when locked. If it sounds again after the specified interval, it starts out at the loudest volume, but again can be reduced. Also, if you opt to lock your phone, then the user-defined alert message won't be displayed until the correct unlock password is entered on the device. Thus, you can't both lock your phone and display a message to the person who has it. The developers indicated that a future version of Prey may allow for an alert message to be displayed first, with a keypress then sending the phone to the lock screen. This would be a significant improvement imo, since it would be nice to display contact information for someone who may have innocently found your phone while at the same time protecting your privacy by having the phone locked down.
[[[EDIT: This paragraph no longer applies. As reported in my post (below), the developers have now fixed this problem, but I'm leaving this paragraph here as part of my original review. "Prey currently fails on the MT4G when it comes to generating reports in order to track the activities and location of your lost phone. The reports are supposed to be generated at the same frequency as the actions above (10 to 40 minute intervals) when in 'lost' mode, with the free version allowing you to have up to 10 reports on file before the newest report will replace the oldest one. However, after trying every possible setting I could think of on both the Prey side and phone side, I could never get these reports to generate on a consistent basis (success on <10% of attempts). I contacted the developers about this and other questions/concerns, and they were friendly and helpful with trying to resolve the issue. Apparently they haven't had any problems like this on their test device, but again, the reports are not reliable for the MT4G."]]]
In summary, Prey works great for being able to lock down your phone via SMS if it's lost or stolen, with an optional alert message and alarm sound. It currently does not [EDIT: DOES...the problem was fixed] work in terms of helping you find the location of your lost or stolen phone via gps/wifi, etc.
Note: Lookout does offer the ability to locate your device in the free version of that app, but does not allow wipe or lock without purchasing the premium app. Thus, perhaps using Lookout in conjunction with Prey allows the free version of each of these apps to compliment one another.
Edit: The developers of Prey continue to be very friendly and responsive. They contacted me to let me know that they are continuing to work on resolving the problem with generating reports. I'll report back when the issue is resolved.
Thanks to me if you found this review helpful : )

Update: The developers of Prey did some debugging and were able to find the problem that was keeping the location reports from being consistently generated. I tested out a fixed version on both of my Mytouch 4Gs and it now seems to be working perfectly.

security app

just wanted to find out what peoples preferences were for a good security app? Doing some research at work but also have a desire hd myself, with the miui rom.
At the moment I'm using bitdefender - mainly because it's cloud based uses little mobile resources and the locater is very accurate. The only downside is that you have to be using a browser to activate the locater or wipe the phone, can't use another mobile. Not can you sound an alarm if it does get stolen or lost.
Im not too fussed on the malware scanning operation of the app because I am very careful in what i download.

i´ve been using lookout for a while now. thing is though that in over eight or nine months using it, i´ve yet to get a notification that it´s done anything.
to put that into context i´ve gone to some very sketchy pr0n sites and downloaded many many off market apps and yet not one popup saying that it´s done anything. so to be honest that begs the question do they actually do anything? are they necessary?

Just my 2 cents but these types of apps are pretty pointless unless you are always misplacing your phone. As long as you pay attention to what you are allowing apps to do "permissions" then you will be fine. Plus most apps have been built to not show up in any security apps as they don't ask for anymore permissions then most apps do.

[Q] Multi-user feature in 4.2

Anyone playing with 4.2 yet?
Second and subsequent users seem to have to go through some kind of set up. Can they/do they need to use a Google Account they already have on another device? Is it a good idea for them to do so?

WibblyW said:
Anyone playing with 4.2 yet?
Second and subsequent users seem to have to go through some kind of set up. Can they/do they need to use a Google Account they already have on another device? Is it a good idea for them to do so?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
was just playing around on mine yeah it seems it's set up as another user (inc google sync everything) what i was hoping for was like a guest account that could browse the web use some of the apps (according to a whitelist or something) say im with some friends and am streaming music and want to be able to let them use it without giving them access to my email and other stuff?
sadly not to be i fear unless someone can allay my fears?

Looks like you have to emulate a guest user by pre configuring them as a 'dummy' account, with dummy email etc.
Would be difficult to get them access your paid apps though. And what if you set up free apps under that account? Are re downloaded and take up space? That would be a bummer for big apps like games.

WibblyW said:
Looks like you have to emulate a guest user by pre configuring them as a 'dummy' account, with dummy email etc.
Would be difficult to get them access your paid apps though. And what if you set up free apps under that account? Are re downloaded and take up space? That would be a bummer for big apps like games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly want to show the thing off but don't want to have to stand over them making sure they don't go rooting around

WibblyW said:
Looks like you have to emulate a guest user by pre configuring them as a 'dummy' account, with dummy email etc.
Would be difficult to get them access your paid apps though. And what if you set up free apps under that account? Are re downloaded and take up space? That would be a bummer for big apps like games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is this going to be managed then?
Good Point !

Wilks3y said:
How is this going to be managed then?
Good Point !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried that out with my girlfriends account and it seems like if you download an app, which you already have on your device, it "installs" it almost immediately. There is no re-download of the file. However, if you start the app you'll see a new instance of it, without any data taken from your other account. Maybe there are some apps which keep their settings but those which I've testet so far seem to start naked. This will mean that the app itself will only stored once, the data like savegames etc. is stored per user.
What bugs me is that there seems no way (maybe with root) to access the internal storage area of the other user. As example, I have some movies stored on my device and I can only access them in the account which was active, when I copied the files to the device.
Edit:
BOOOM: Here we go. Tried to install the facebook app on two users and got the following message:
"You cannot install this app because another user has already installed an incompatible version on this device"
Seems like Google adding this feature is only one part of the story. I think there are quite a lot apps out there which will run into the same issue.
Edit2:
Looked a little bit deeper into this and found out, that this was NOT caused by an incompatibility issue from the facebook app itself. I've modified the apk (for testing purposes, don't use facebook much) with "AppGuard" and installed it outside of the google play store. As I tried to reinstall the facebook app from the play store I ran into the previous described error message.

So am I correct in thinking there will be no way to "make apps available" to all users? I thought this would be a great tool for my son, so i can basically say you can have access to these 10 games and that's it. but if i have to add my google account then "install" each game that's going to be a pain in the arse!
Is there no resource documentation on this? I looked I could not find anything on google that addressed apps really at all.

Each user appears to get a their own "home" directory created in /mnt/shell/emulated.
Default user dir is "0"
Second user dir is "10"
Each contain the standard dir's from 4.1 and earlier.
I took a CWM nandroid backup immediately after upgrading and the clockworkmod folder is in the same directory, so I'm guessing that any app that uses the old-style home path will need updating.
since adding the second user SuperSu has had issues - hangs & then crash, and the Settings app crashed - if I have time I'll revert to stock, upgrade again, and then add another account without rooting & installing supersu/busybox et al.

Android Security Concerns

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction after spending a day reading about mobile phone security. I'm still confused as to what an app can do and how I can limit access. Some answers or a point in the right direction for more information would be helpful.
Apps that are granted permission "Modify/Delete SD Card" can pretty much read/write anything on my device? Could an app go through my sd card and see files, for example, music, movies, other data from different apps; file names/content? I have about 35 apps running on my phone with this access. I'd rather not leave it to "how much I trust the developer" and have some means to limit access to data.
I don't keep national security secrets on my nexus but there is work and personal information that is sensitive and I wouldn't want shared. It looks like if I use android to encrypt my data it only encrypts the /data folder and there doesn't seem to be much in there.
What about securing contact and calendar data? Is this possible? Not as critical as guarding my file data, but still important to me. Thanks.

Yes, files on the external sdcard are not protected, I.e. all apps which have the right to read/write sdcard can read/write everything there. One reason is just the filesystem type: on FAT you don't have access rights. On internal /sdcard it's a bit different, because it's using ext4 as a filesystem, so principally not all apps can read everything, but also here you have the problem that for example the camera, the gallery app, ... need access to the same files and directories. So at the moment you need to trust the apps in a certain way or not to install it at all.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

While it is difficult for someone with limited tech experience, it is plausible to protect your data with measures like XPrivacy or PDroid.
However, if you're looking for an answer without jumping through a few technical hoops, there aren't many good ones unfortunately. The best bet is as you already suggested, that is to be smart about where you browse the net, and only install trusted apps. Always think twice and review permissions carefully for any app even if it's from the Play Store.
And don't forget encryption only works similar to a house door. It's only good if you keep it locked. But if you let the bad guys into your house (i.e., installing a naughty app), it doesn't protect you much. It only keeps them out so long as you don't let them in (physical access). P.S. I'm assuming you're talking about the stock android encryption not actually having individual encrypted files on your device if not then ignore this paragraph (although I'm sure some will disagree that even having SHA-512 AES encrypted files with a extremely complex and long passwords is still not enough to protect data once a malicious user gets their hands on that file.)

Even on the internal SD card, it looks like once I give an app access to "modify/delete" the entire sd card is exposed; did I understand that correctly? It looks like grant access to everything or nothing.
After reading this:
http://appanalysis.org/
It seems that even trusted developers can't be trusted. I don't consider myself a novice user but I'm really surprised at how exposed the data is on phones and tablets. Its like leaving money on your front porch and hoping it isn't too tempting for someone to walk though a broken gate and grab.
Any idea what WP, iOS or BB10 offer in the way of data protection?

TheAltruistic said:
While it is difficult for someone with limited tech experience, it is plausible to protect your data with measures like XPrivacy or PDroid.
However, if you're looking for an answer without jumping through a few technical hoops, there aren't many good ones unfortunately. /QUOTE]
XPrivacy looks good, might be worth rooting for that app.
I'm not as concerned with an app downloading files and using a high level attack on my data. I am concerned about an app where the developer decides to go through my contacts, photos, and files which are unlocked and easily viewed. Then sell the data to whomever that can do whatever. No effort required, no ability to know the data was even accessed and no ability to lock the data. I think like most things, if there is more than a slight effort needed to access the data, they'll move on to something else.
I see Google offers encryption but I can't find information on exactly what is encrypted and if I install an app with say permission to contacts does that give them encrypted access to all contacts? For example, a program that can add a contact via sms I don't want to allow it to read all my contacts, just add a new one.
Maybe Android isn't the right platform for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

mgerbasio said:
TheAltruistic said:
While it is difficult for someone with limited tech experience, it is plausible to protect your data with measures like XPrivacy or PDroid.
However, if you're looking for an answer without jumping through a few technical hoops, there aren't many good ones unfortunately. /QUOTE]
XPrivacy looks good, might be worth rooting for that app.
I'm not as concerned with an app downloading files and using a high level attack on my data. I am concerned about an app where the developer decides to go through my contacts, photos, and files which are unlocked and easily viewed. Then sell the data to whomever that can do whatever. No effort required, no ability to know the data was even accessed and no ability to lock the data. I think like most things, if there is more than a slight effort needed to access the data, they'll move on to something else.
I see Google offers encryption but I can't find information on exactly what is encrypted and if I install an app with say permission to contacts does that give them encrypted access to all contacts? For example, a program that can add a contact via sms I don't want to allow it to read all my contacts, just add a new one.
Maybe Android isn't the right platform for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh don't give up. To be honest at least android tells you when it grants a program certain permissions unlike some other OSes where you're in the dark in terms of security.
As far as I know, and I'm assuming we're talking about the same thing, the type of encryption Android offers only prevents people from gaining unauthorized access to your data if your device is mounted or accessed when your lock screen is up. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong--please do). But if your device is not password protected (e.g., you set lock password to lock every hour and they get it when it's unlocked) then your data can potentially be compromised.
This encryption does not, however, protect your data as you're browsing the internet, or running apps like facebook.
If you're looking for something to protect your data from say facebook finding your GPS location without your permission, or accessing your contacts and doing God knows what with it, then XPrivacy and PDroid (links above) is your answer, and I'd say that's awesome.
I may not play around with an iPhone / iOS enough, but I'm confident enough to say that they don't offer the same privacy protection even from Cydia that you can get from communities like here on XDA. Perhaps for iOS users, ignorance is bliss?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

TheAltruistic said:
mgerbasio said:
Heh don't give up. To be honest at least android tells you when it grants a program certain permissions unlike some other OSes where you're in the dark in terms of security.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again. I appreciate the comments.
All I'm really looking to do is prevent an app downloading all my contacts, photos, movies, files, etc. I have some work data on my tablet that isn't confidential but it is what I would call sensitive. Actually, I rarely use external memory, mostly just use in internal sd card.
It seems all the "good apps" grab more permissions than they need or, the permission they do need to operate gives them way more access than I'd like. I'm not so concerned that I'd start using Tor or duckduckgo, but just trusting a developer with an open door to data is more than I can to leave to chance.
From what I've been reading the sandboxing in iOS and WP provide good security and in BB you can remove permissions from apps; BB10 is still the most secure if you can believe the internet articles. I'd like to see Google make it more clear as to what encryption actually allows and prevents.
There seems to be apps that button up a lot of holes, like photos, but there still are gaping holes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Hi guys,
Any progress? I use PDroid on my smartphone and find it unnerving to see how much and how often data is accessed not only by third party apps but by Google itself. With PDroid you can restrict permissions without bricking the app because it can provide fake data rather than none. I have to say that I am not entirely happy with it though. I hope that Firefox OS will have success in stopping the appification of our devices. Data wise, it is much safer to use web-based services than app-based services.
I think Google's Android is so successful with developers (also) because they can gather so much data. Our smartphones are unfortunately "data gold mines" for the ICT industry.
If you have any progress in improving privacy, safety and security of the Nexus 7 than I'd be happy to read about it.

Coaxing GrooVe IP to work?

Yeah, I know it's kind of "out there", but consider the problem a proof-of-concept exercise
I've found an old version of the app that will install and "run" on Eclair--but not so old that it still tries to log into GoogleVoice. I can get past the intro screen but for the "sign in" screen I get a white-out condition except for the little bar that says "Sign in". The menu options (help and exit) can still be brought up.
I use GrooVe IP Lite on my Nook Tablet and a cheap little unactivated Kit-Kat smartphone I bought as a dedicated mp3 player (after my beloved Insignia Pilot died :crying. It works great for an emergency call if you can scare up wi-fi----and it's free (to any land-line in the US or Canada--cell phones too, I guess). In this respect it seems better than Skype to me unless you have a lot of overseas contacts (I don't).
So....I uninstalled the current app from my little Kit-Kat device and side-loaded the old app. It ran just fine, allowed me to sign in, etc. Once signed in and exited, the next time the app starts you are already signed in. Hmm. I started digging in the /data/data folder for the app and came across two xml files of preferences, one of which clearly contained log-in information (my assigned telephone number, my email, etc.). So I tried copying that file to the same folder on the NST, hoping to get past the indomitable white-out. No joy. Same behavior AND when I checked the xml file I had overwritten it had been returned to a generic state, minus my personal data
I tried two other things. I reactivated the old phone.apk system app. That made no difference. I didn't try the telephony or whatever that other one is. I also started up USB audio before going to the app, thinking it might check for audio capabilities (and it still might) but that made no difference.
I'd probably never use the app on the NST but I am curious about what is keeping it from working. Perhaps the voip server just rejects log-in attempts from really old Android systems.
Any ideas?

Sorry for necroposting but this topic is in line of mine reasoning to use device as much as possible as it is. So if it does not have camera why would you need a Skype or Whatsapp? As a VoIP phone that is OK. Did you made any progress on that one? I am asking because I have a feeling that it might be possible to write an application that would work like VoIP/SIP/web phone to completely remove Phone.apk that reside in NST.

SJT75 said:
Sorry for necroposting but this topic is in line of mine reasoning to use device as much as possible as it is. So if it does not have camera why would you need a Skype or Whatsapp? As a VoIP phone that is OK. Did you made any progress on that one? I am asking because I have a feeling that it might be possible to write an application that would work like VoIP/SIP/web phone to completely remove Phone.apk that reside in NST.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I eventually gave up on the idea. It was only a lark from the start, just to see if it would be possible, but the demands of the task exceeded my knowledge. GrooveIP has changed the way connections are made as well as encryption schemes several times over since I first looked at the issue. All that aside, I doubt that the device could now login to the new servers even if all the code were properly in place.
Re: Phone.apk, on the NST this is where the control of the Android volume resides, so if you remove that you lose the ability to control the media volume (or any volume, for that matter). I eventually discovered this after a lot of flailing around with kludges to prevent the media volume from blasting out when using USB Audio. Many people had deactivated or deleted Phone.apk (me too). When I re-enabled the app I suddenly had access to the volume controls.

nmyshkin said:
No, I eventually gave up on the idea.
Re: Phone.apk, on the NST this is where the control of the Android volume resides, so if you remove that you lose the ability to control the media volume (or any volume, for that matter). I eventually discovered this after a lot of flailing around with kludges to prevent the media volume from blasting out when using USB Audio. Many people had deactivated or deleted Phone.apk (me too). When I re-enabled the app I suddenly had access to the volume controls.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First thanks for reply. Second does that mean you won't have anything against me trying to do something like that... it might not be GrooVeIP since I haven't decided what service would be optimal to begin with. Third I have read your experiments with Phone.apk and that part of volume control resides there that is why I suggest not to remove it but rewrite it in a more usable form. Even if I fail doing that at least I might have satisfaction in knowing that I tried.

SJT75 said:
First thanks for reply. Second does that mean you won't have anything against me trying to do something like that... it might not be GrooVeIP since I haven't decided what service would be optimal to begin with. Third I have read your experiments with Phone.apk and that part of volume control resides there that is why I suggest not to remove it but rewrite it in a more usable form. Even if I fail doing that at least I might have satisfaction in knowing that I tried.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By all means, give it a try! Supposedly some versions of WhatsApp would run on the NST. Again, whether you could log in to a server is another matter.

nmyshkin said:
By all means, give it a try! Supposedly some versions of WhatsApp would run on the NST. Again, whether you could log in to a server is another matter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also think that WhatsApp would fail since company promised support for devices with Android older then 2.3 would be maintained until February of this year. Still some other existing software might go through installation process and be registered using code sent to mobile phone that have same software or maybe I find something new who knows.