Lookout Mobile Security (2012)

Lookout has done utterly a name for itself in a mobile security market. The company’s Mobile Security app has garnered millions of downloads and a good understanding of vicious acclaim. But as some-more determined players in a confidence module locus enter a mobile game, Lookout finds itself carrying to contest with a likes of McAfee and Kaspersky. The good news is that a app offers top-notch insurance and an easy-to-use interface. Read on to find out if this $29 app is clever adequate to keep a vast dogs during bay.

Setup Interface

Installing Lookout Mobile Security was easy enough. We simply downloaded a app from a Android Market to a Droid Bionic and tapped install. Once installed, we fast ran by a module setup, that requires we to capacitate a app’s security, backup and plcae features. The whole routine took reduction than dual minutes.

Click to EnlargeLookout’s user interface is appealing and straightforward. The homescreen offers a tabbed list of a categorical features, including Security, Privacy Advisor, Safe Browsing, Backup and Missing Device. At a front of any add-on is a vast immature checkmark indicating that a analogous underline is active. Disable a feature, and a checkmark will be transposed by a gray reduction symbol. When Lookout detects a square of malware, a Security add-on will light adult with a vast red bullseye. Tap a add-on and Lookout will give we a outline of a malware and how it could impact your phone.

Tap a menu symbol from Lookout’s homescreen and you’ll be brought to a app’s menu page. Here, we could make elementary changes to a app’s indicate report and invalidate or capacitate certain features, yet that’s about it. Other mobile security suites, such as Kaspersky’s Mobile Security 9, let we name either a app should indicate all of your device’s memory, specific folders or a certain form of file.

Detection Performance

To exam a efficacy of Lookout’s pathogen scanner, we downloaded a obvious EICAR exam pathogen to a Droid Bionic. The module has been on a marketplace given 2006 and should be simply picked adult by any antivirus module value a salt. Sure enough, Lookout was means to detect a module as shortly as we finished downloading it, and told us not to implement it onto a Bionic.

In further to providing a warning, Lookout also provides a minute outline of a malware and gave us a choice to undo it or keep it. Lookout also identified apps that it suspected might be malicious, revelation us that ones attempted accessing a personal information.

From a opening standpoint, Lookout is probably undetectable. To exam a app’s impact on a Bionic, we ran a Linpack benchmark exam with and yet Lookout running. Before installing Lookout, a Bionic notched a 53.3 on a multi-core apportionment of a Linpack test. With Lookout installed, a Bionic achieved extremely better, notching a measure of 64.9.

Anti-Theft Data Protection

Click to EnlargeOne of Lookout’s many engaging facilities is a Privacy Advisor. It provides a extensive list of a apps on your device that have entrance to your personal information, including your phone number, hit list, content messages and location. The usually problem with a underline is that it can’t brand that apps shouldn’t have entrance to your private information and that should. While that’s a bit of a letdown, it’s still engaging to see that of your apps could be espionage on you.

Lookout’s protected browsing feature, like McAfee Mobile Security‘s Site Advisor, protects users opposite phishing sites and antagonistic URLs. Each time your entrance a local Android browser, Lookout will indicate a URL to establish if a site we are visiting contains any antagonistic code. Lookout will afterwards accumulate a list of a sites that we visited and that ones carried malware.

Web Console

Click to EnlargeOf all of a mobile security suites we tested, Lookout Mobile Security had a many appealing Web console interface. We appreciated how easy all was to find, and generally favourite a fact that we were means to change a confidence settings on a fly. Here, we could use a device tracker, and entrance a remote close and remote roar features. With a device tracker, Lookout will locate a user’s device and arrangement a location, down to a building it’s in, regulating Google Maps.

The remote roar underline will means a user’s device to evacuate a high-pitch sorrow sound when activated, assisting we find your phone if you’ve mislaid it in your residence and can’t find it, or shock off a burglar who might have snatched it from you. We tested a roar feature, and can demonstrate to a capabilities. The sound was earsplitting.

If your device is stolen, we can also select to remotely close it so it can’t be accessed yet a incidentally generated cue that is usually permitted from Lookout’s Web console. If you’re endangered that your personal information will be swiped from your blank device, we can activate Lookout’s remote clean feature, that will immediately erase all of your private information, ensuring that it doesn’t tumble into a wrong hands.

If we do occur to mislay your Android phone, you’ll still be means to collect a information on it interjection to Lookout’s enclosed information backup service. The feature, that is enclosed with Lookout’s $29.99 reward version, lets users store adult to 2GB of information in a cloud, including photos, call records, and contacts, a final of that is enclosed as a underline in a hearing chronicle of Mobile Security. Unfortunately, there is no backup choice for apps.

Premium vs. Trial

Lookout Mobile Security has one of a best giveaway confidence suites we’ve seen. In further to a anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-malware features, a module also lets we backup your contacts to a cloud, revive your contacts to your stream phone, and locate your phone around a well-developed Web console. It’s utterly probable we could get by with only a giveaway chronicle of Lookout Mobile Security, yet users looking for a some-more strong turn of protection–complete with remote clean and remote close features–should demeanour to a reward edition.

Verdict

With a elementary interface and strong underline set, a $29 Lookout Mobile Security is one of a favorite confidence apps. We also favourite Lookout’s Web console a best among a competition, and appreciated a Privacy Advisor and Safe Browser functions. However, we were unhappy with how easy a app was to remove, and would have favourite to seen total storage and SIM label locking, as with a likewise labelled McAfee Mobile Security. Overall, though, Lookout Mobile Security is an glorious value.