muzikjay

What is Lookout Mobile Security?
Lookout Mobile Security is a really great app from the Android Marketplace. It scans all downloaded apps for viruses, including 3rd party apps installed from your SD card. It also allows you to backup your files on your phone as well as making it possible to find your phone through Lookout Mobile's website in case your phone is ever lost or stolen. First, I will go through phone side of the app and then I will go through the web access side of the app. My goal for this review is to give you a thorough tour of this app for those that aren't quite sure what mobile security is all about.

Mobile side of Lookout
To download Lookout Mobile Security, you can simply search for, "lookout" in the Android Marketplace and it should be the first app on the list of results. I will also simply refer to the app as "Lookout" from here on out. Download and wait for it to install. Once you install and open the app, it will leave an icon in the top, left corner of the taskbar of your phone.



From there, when you pull down the taskbar, you'll notice that Lookout gives you the last file scanned info directly from your taskbar.



If you ever want to remove icon from your taskbar and simply have it run at another time, then go to Settings>Applications>Running Services and you can turn it off from there.
Now go ahead and open the app and you will come to this screen.



Now I know that for a lot of people, simply having to sign up, simply to use an app can be irritating but this is a really quick and easy process. It's literally just your email address and password and you're ready to go!



After the 5 seconds it takes you to sign up, this will be your application home screen.



You'll see that it is broken up into the three main features of the app which are, "Anti-Virus", "Data Backup", and "Missing Device".

Pressing "Anti-virus" allows you to scan all apps that are installed on your phone with the push of a button. It also tells you how long since your last scan.



Pressing "Data Backup" allows you to backup all of your contacts, photos, and call history, to Lookout's server, as well as giving you the time of your last backup.



Finally, "Missing Device" allows you to tweak your location settings. I chose to find my phone via Wi-Fi or mobile network, and an e-mail is sent to you once your phone has been located showing you a map and where your phone is on the map which I will show you later on from the web access side.

Click menu, and settings options will pop up on the bottom of the screen.



The Anti-Virus settings will allow you to change the frequency of the scans, including weekly, daily, or specific days out of the week as well as what times you want it to scan.



Data Backup settings allow you to choose the frequency of backup times as well as which types of files you'd like backed up (this does not include apps).



Notification Settings just asks you whether you want the status displayed or not.

Web access side
Okay, so now that the mobile side has been covered, I'll show you how to really use this app, with the web access side of the app. First you'll want to go to https://www.mylookout.com. Since you've already signed up through your phone, you can just click, "Login".



After logging in, you will be brought to your Lookout homepage which shows you the same three options that are in your phone, as well as listing all of your recent activity with Lookout. This page also allows you to add another device if you'd like so that you can restore files to one device that have been backed up from a separate phone. This is a great tool for those times when you need to switch phones without giving up any files or contacts.




The Anti-Virus tab gives you a list of all of your virus scans, including dates and results.



The Data Backup tab shows all of the information you have backed up and gives you the options to restore or backup from the web. It also let's you choose to only restore certain files if you don't need to restore every file that have been backed up. Choosing "Contacts" or "Photos" will allow you to specify further while "Call History" just displays the call history that has been backed up. Once nice feature about this is that it has a history that goes back to your first backup. So, you can go by date and choose files that you might have lost recently, but backed up a few months before.






If you choose "Restore" from the Overview tab, it will let you choose dates of your full backups and restore whichever one you'd like as well as specifying between either Contacts or photos, if not both.



Clicking the "Missing Device" tab lets you track your device using Google Maps and your phones gps system or network connection.



The "Locate" button will start a 3 minute countdown and attempt to locate your phone. It does say beta which is probably why I wasn't able to find my phone. It did eventually locate it and sent me an email later on, letting me know that my device had been found. Once I followed the link, it gave me an accurate radius of where my phone was.





The "Scream" button works very well. It's honestly not as loud as they make it out to be but it is loud enough to find your phone if it's lost in your house somewhere. To stop the sound you can either turn your phone off once you find it or you can just let it time out after about 3 minutes.



The Settings tab gives you all of the same options as the Lookout settings in your phone. Again, this allows you to set up the frequency of the virus scans and your phone's backup down to the day and time.




Conclusion
Well that's Lookout Mobile Security. It's a really great app and has proven to be absolutely vital for me. It gives the user so much that it's a wonder that it's free. Being able to backup my files and contacts has helped me on numerous occasions and it's nice to be able to check on the proof of your phone's backup from the web. Despite the locate service not working as smoothly as I'd like, I still give this app 5 out of 5 stars for the ease of use as well as the fact that it's completely free. If you're still not convinced, then here is a Phandroid news article about how Lookout Mobile Security helped put one phone thief in cuffs. Lookout Mobile Security indeed.

Last edited by muzikjay; June 9th, 2010 at 10:39 PM.

dfine1966

I have a question. Why is it free. How does the company make money? You are uploading to their site, for free. Is their site safe? I don't get why it is free. What is the catch. It sounds to good to be true. If anyone know why it is free and if it is as safe uploading to there site, I would love to know.

Eth0s

I'd like to know why it is free as well. Almost does seem to good to be true. Almost the same shit as Apple's MobileMe, but free..

I do have it on my phone and back up my data on it but what is the catch? Great app btw..

clockwork58

I've used this app for just over a year now. Gives you peace of mind in case you lose your phone and you have all your contacts backed up online.

When I switched from my WinMo device to Android. The Restore function on the web site did a great job to download all my contacts to my new device.

I believe it is free because I now they were in Beta not too long ago and could still be. I've created support tickets and they have fixed/followed up with them.

IMO, I think it WILL be a paid app in the future, but i think they are still working towards perfecting their product before charging for it.

rleal2010

Hey,

this app is free right now because it IS in beta mode.

Most Good apps are free for a while and work on issues that have been sent to them.

If you email them with a complaint, they check to see if its a "common" complaint and if it is, they try to fix it.

Once the complaints are done, or they feel that this app is ready to be converted to a paid app, it will do so.

Most good developers dont have every android phone out there, so writing a program has a different affect on others phones.

Give it some time and they will start charging either a monthly price or a one time fee.

Thats how these things work.

P.S. Dont make that uploading your lifestyle, when it becomes free they could give you the option to upgrade to a paid app, or they will delete or deny you access to your personal files.

Just be prepared to pay when the time comes.

I'm sure they will delete any uploaded documents because if not, they will get a bad reputation.

fadmans

Hi,
I'm currently trying to backup my phone contacts by using lookout. However it does not backup any of my contacts. It did back up my picture and other data though. Why is it not backing up my contacts? Does it backup the contacts in the sim card or phone? because it did not backup any of my contacts..anything that im missing here?

thank you.

slburto1

@fadmans: did you check your settings? maybe its not setup to backup your contacts... all you would need to do is check that box in your backup settings.

and yes... I think it's free because it's in beta. That should means more advanced features to come with their paid version?! I hope!

tracerit

i just don't like how it doesn't save videos and when you view your saved images, it's only viewable by days and not a whole month or even all pictures at once. makes archiving and downloading the pictures a pain.

Nodders

Just out of interest - how many virusus in the latest AV database?

morpheus2n2

My thoughts exactly I used it for about 10 mins (it drainds the battary bad) I refused point blank to use the back up part even my contacts for one simple reason the software is free, rule of thumb if the apps free and they ask you to back up on there servers you info IS goin to be sold to 3rd partys withOUT your pomision!!!
And to be honest how can a phone get a virus??? if it posible then I would rather pay for antivirus from a well know company then a free app from one I dont lol

asp2010

hi guys. i was wondering if this app is worth having, especially since the post above says it eats up a lot of battery. i mean, has anyone ever needed it or made use of it for removing a virus or even detecting one?

tamanaco

I'm experiencing the same issue with my new Samsung Captivate with over 1,000 contacts (Organized in Groups). I have checked the settings in the Lookout app in the phone and in the Lookout web interface and both have Calls, Contacts and Pictures selected. It backs up the Calls history and the Pictures, but not the Contacts. I switched to Android recently, but I've been using Lookout (formerly Flexilis) for a long time using Win Mobile and never experienced any issues backing up. I have also rebooted the phone and checked and unchecked the settings to see if fixes the issue, but no cigar.

I hope this is fixed soon as I just transferred all my data to this new phone. Having Lookout functioning correctly on my Captivate will give me peace of mind.

tamanaco

I received an email from someone from the Lookout team stating: " Currently we are experiencing a problem with backing up non-google based contacts on Android 2.1.x devices. We are working diligently to correct this"

tamanaco

I thought I had posted this already, but here I go again. There was a recent update in the Android Market for Lookout, but the issue with non-google contacts was not addressed.

twilighter

Lookout is awesome. Never had any problems with it.

__________________
HTC Evo

tamanaco

Another Lookout Android update (4.11), but the issue of not backing up non-Google contacts has not yet been addressed.

I just paid a $1 for a promotional one-year subscription, but if this issue is not solved with the Android client soon, I'll have to look for a similar solution from another vendor.

JubbaTheHutt

I'd be very weary of using this "great app". I installed it yesterday, ran a backup of my device, and shortly after realized that 95% of my photos were removed. And strangely enough, they were not backed up on my account...

I've contacted customer support in hopes that they can retrieve them...

grindle

I'm not so much interested in backing up as I am with adware/malware/viruses, etc. I am not too savvy with smartphones OR computers so I figure better safe than sorry. Not sure if smartphones can GET viruses but I imagine if companies are making anti-virus software than there must be SOMETHING icky out there...

I have not installed this app. as I have heard mixed things on it. Can anyone recommend a good anti-virus program? Or if it's not necessary, let me know if there are any security precautions I should know about?

Thanks so much!

pWndYke

Very nice review 5/5.

tamanaco

I looked for a setting to change the time zone on the Lookout Web site for the phone-location function, but I could not find a way to change it. Once the the phone is located the time is displayed in Pacific time. I understand that their web site is in the west coast and that all I have to do is add 3 hours, but shouldn't this function display the local time?

simn22

App is great, but one problem.

If my phone were to be stolen, and the person turns off my phone, it wouldn't be able to locate/scream correct?