There are some things we have come to take for granted that would have seemed absurd twenty years ago. One such thing is the fact that we walk around with devices that cost a thousand dollars in our pockets, constantly at risk of being stolen.
We can’t afford to leave our phones in a safe at home, of course. The best we can do is install some security apps and stay alert. It is also crucial to get theft insurance for your phone. No matter how prepared you may be, your phone could always be stolen.
What anti-theft apps can you get for your phone? Here are the best options for iPhone and Android.
Best Anti-Theft Apps For iPhone
In most cases, the best apps for Android and iPhone tend to be the same. However, when it comes to theft, the options are very different. This is because Apple is very particular about what third-party apps are able to do on an iPhone. You’ll find very few anti-theft apps for your iPhone. These are the ones you should consider installing.
Find My iPhone
Apple’s native anti-theft app is excellent, even if it does not do everything other anti-theft apps do. It is ideal for people who have multiple Apple devices, as you can access Find My on any of these devices.
Find My iPhone is not just for tracking a stolen phone either. You can get your phone, tablet, or Macbook to beep using the app, leading you right to it. But its anti-theft properties go beyond tracking. You can use Find My iPhone to erase your phone remotely. This way, a thief cannot get access to your data even if they figure out your PIN.
Find My iPhone is automatically turned on. However, if you have privacy concerns, you can switch it off.
Prey
One of the few anti-theft iOS apps worth downloading is Prey Find my Phone Tracker. It offers one of the few things the Find My iPhone app does not. You can take a photo of the thief using the front and back cameras. It can also be set to trigger an alarm if your phone is taken out of specific zones.
The problem with using third party apps is that you are giving them a lot of access to your phone. If you don’t fully trust the company behind the app, you should not download it.
Best Anti-Theft Apps For Android
There are a few anti-theft apps for Android. However, there has been something of a crackdown on these apps in recent days. The app most considered to be the best anti-theft app for Android – Cerberus – was banned from the Google Play Store after having been exposed for selling their code to malicious parties and putting Android users at risk.
Nonetheless, the following anti-theft apps are available and effective.
Find My Device
This is the native Android tracking app. In terms of features, it is fairly similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone. You can track its location as well as erasing your data remotely. You can also send a message to the screen of your phone for whoever has stolen or found it.
Anti-Theft Alarm
Anti-Theft Alarm is not meant to be a complex security system. Rather, it serves as an alarm to alert you that something is wrong. You can set it to go off when your phone is taken from its charger, when the SIM card is removed, and in other scenarios. The sound will not stop until a passcode is entered. You can also activate it remotely and it will sound even if the phone is on silent.
McAfee Mobile Security
If you are going to give permissions to an app to access all aspects of your phone, you can’t do better than trusting McAfee, the antivirus company that has led the way for decades. Their mobile security app has tracking features, as well as the ability to capture an image of the thief.
You can set it so that if a person enters the code incorrectly 3 times, the phone is locked and a photo of the person is captured from the front-facing camera.
Losing your phone to theft is incredibly frustrating. The best anti-theft apps will help you find it or, at the least, keep your data from the hands of the thief.