Lookout Mobile Security

Lookout is a smartphone security company dedicated to making the mobile experience safe for everyone. Mobile threats are different so mobile security has to be different too. Lookout software is designed for mobile phone to protect against threats including malware, spyware and apps that violate your privacy.

Lookout Mobile Security offers a collection of security features for Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile devices. A free edition includes a subset of the premium edition’s features ($2.99/month or $29.99/year, direct). Like Trend Micro Mobile Security for Android ($3.99 direct), the app offers a full antivirus scan, especially important in light of the recent spate of Android malware. Users can run a scan on demand or set up a schedule for automated scanning. Lookout will also warn if you install a known spyware app and offer to uninstall it. The premium edition adds analysis and reporting on privacy issues for valid apps. Its privacy dashboard lists installed apps that have access to your personal information, and the privacy scan offers a summary. Specifically Lookout’s Privacy Advisor empowers you to gain control of private information on your phone by providing clear insight into which apps access private data. You can quickly review a list of all your downloaded apps that access your data like contacts, location, messages and personal information. For added security, Lookout allows you to remotely lock your phone from the web if it’s lost or stolen. Remote Lock and Remote Wipe are an additional layer of defense against information theft and are included in Lookout Premium for Android: to protect your private information if you’ve lost your phone by remotely wiping your phone, deleting all personal data from it, including the SD card. Other smart and funny features are scream and locate: if the phone is lost you can send it a special text message to which it will reply with its geographic location. Still can’t find it at that location? Another text will make it emit a loud noise.

To protect against loss of important information the app will back up your contacts and restore them on demand to your existing or new phone. Schedule automatic backups of your data so you can rest assured that you always have an extra copy of your most important data. The premium edition also backs up photos and phone call history, and can restore or transfer data to a different phone. You can even view the saved data online at the Lookout web site. Lookout Mobile Security is available now from the Android market and directly from www.mylookout.com.