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.
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.
