Your phone carries value beyond the actual price you’ve paid for it. From sensitive and private information to personal details, our smartphones are like a vault that needs to given appropriate reinforcement regularly.
The right app will give you some serious peace of mind while ensuring that there is more control in your hands when you’re not around your phone. This is where anti-theft apps and alarms come in.
Apps are constantly developing and more ingenious ways are being developed to protect the sanctity of your smartphone. From literal alarms to powerful tracking, these apps are not kidding around when it comes to protecting your phone.
Google’s native anti-theft app, Find My Phone is always available for your phone. However, the app is limited in features and may not have that something extra you’re looking for. Nonetheless, make sure you have activated this app before looking at other options.
Here’s a list of the best anti-theft apps and alarms that will keep your phone safe.
Kaspersky Mobile Antivirus: AppLock & Web Security
Kaspersky is nothing if not extremely thorough. This app’s anti-theft features will let you track your phone, sound an alarm and take a picture of the perpetrator who is trying to get into your phone.
One of the major pluses of this app is that it provides comprehensive protection against viruses and malware as well. The layers of protection you can add to your phone through Kaspersky will make your phone an impenetrable device. So even if your phone is stolen, all the thief will have is a useless piece of metal.
Download: Kaspersky
Bitdefender Mobile Security & Antivirus
The Bitdefender is a Mobile Security & Antivirus app that is a reliable and secure app that provides decent protection from malware and viruses in order to give you a safe browsing experience. In addition to offering security from cyber threats, it features some additional functionalities including the anti-theft feature that works by preventing your device from loss and thefts.
So if in case, you lose your phone, this app deletes all the data and provides data theft protection while allowing you to locate your device on the map. This functionality can be vitally useful if you are not able to locate your lost phone and have some confidential data that you don’t want to be assessed by anyone.
Download: Bitdefender
Cerberus
This app concentrates on anti-theft majorly unlike the other apps on this list. It offers protection for your device that ranges from remote access through the internet and via SMS to providing custom automatic alerts with a tool called AutoTask.
It also functions as a personal safety and child safety app that you can download separately. The app gives real-time updates to your family and will inform them if it senses that you are in trouble. Cerberus also keeps an eye on your child for you, stepping in and sending you a notification if there is an issue.
The extensive anti-theft and family protection features make this app our highest recommendation for the best anti-theft app.
Download: Cerberus
AVG AntiVirus Free – Android Virus Cleaner 2019
AVG is another great app that comes with comprehensive antivirus features and theft-protection. The remote management console offered by this app is quite extensive. From letting you set a lock screen message to automatically locking the phone when the SIM card is replaced, this app is pretty intuitive.
This app gets bonus acknowledgment for giving free trials of all the anti-theft features. These include discreetly emailing you an image of the thief and remotely capturing audio and photos from your phone using the front camera via AVG’s website.
Download: AVG AntiVirus
Avast Antivirus – Security, App Lock, Photo Vault
Avast offers a great interface to protect and manage the security of your phone. One major reason we like Avast is how friendly it is for visually impaired users too. Features include camera trap which secretly records and takes pictures of the perpetrator once your phone is stolen.
Also, Avast is extremely responsive in general and especially during a crisis. So if you run into trouble with the app or need to get help in case your phone is stolen, their representative will actually respond pretty quickly.
Download: Avast
CrookCatcher – Anti Theft
This app is a great option if you don’t need all the comprehensive anti-virus protection as much as just want to know if someone is snooping around. But that’s all it’s meant to do for free, you can unlock the more comprehensive features by paying for them.
CrookCatcher hides behind the phone’s lock screen and takes a picture with the front-facing camera if someone tries to access your phone with the wrong code. It also emails the photo of the thief to you along with the device’s current GPS location.
Download: CrookCatcher
Mobile Security & Antivirus
Mobile Security and Antivirus is a reliable mobile security app that is packed with a range of Android security features including anti-phishing and anti-theft capabilities. The anti-theft feature tracks the last location of your device where its battery died that can be beneficial in tracking it.
Another good feature is the lock your device feature that automatically locks your device when a trusted SIM card is removed from the phone. It is also important to note that ESet is known for providing a decent layer of security for laptops, PCs and smartphones and this app is no different.
Download: Mobile Security & Antivirus
Lockwatch – Thief Catcher
The Lockwatch-thief catcher is a simple app that guards you against mobile thefts. It does so by simply capturing the picture of the thief when he tries to unlock your phone with an incorrect password. As soon as the first login attempt fails, the app automatically sends you the thief’s picture along with the GPS location of the device by way of an email.
It performs the task silently without giving a capturing sound. Although you will have to upgrade to the premium version to detect SIM card changes or sending an email when the phone is switched on. The premium version also allows you to record 20 seconds of sound by using your phone’s microphone which can be helpful for further investigation.
Download: Lockwatch
Anti-theft alarm
This app will turn your phone into a really annoying siren that people will think at least thrice about before accessing. The premise is pretty simple. Anti-theft alarm gets triggered in different ways depending on the gravity of the situation.
When someone is trying to unlock your phone, for example, it will warn them with a siren to back off. Also, if the app detects a sim change or break-in, the phone will start blaring like a police siren and the screen will start flashing lights creating a crazy scene that the thief won’t be able to handle.
Besides drawing attention to thieves, the Anti-theft alarm is ideal if you’re paranoid and suspect that people are going through your phone without your permission.
Download: Anti-theft alarm
McAfee Mobile Security: Antivirus, Wi-Fi VPN & Anti-Theft
McAfee offers a great combination of safe browsing experience, device optimization, and anti-theft measures in this app. Two aspects of the anti-theft features that really stand out are the Device Lock Security and Thief Cam that lock your device after 3 failed passcode entries and takes a snapshot of the person using it.
Also, McAfee gives extra protection by keeping a thief from uninstalling the Mobile Security app on your device and keeping it in under complete lockdown. You can also remotely manage the security app and control your phone from a web portal in case of theft.
Download: McAfee
Lost Phone Tracker
The Lost phone tracker does exactly what its name suggests. The app makes it fairly easy to track your device’s location on the map to make it easy for you to reach your phone’s location in case of theft.
Install the app and view your phone’s location, you can even change the map to satellite view that allows you to see the street view of the place where your phone is. However, you can only track a lost phone if this app is installed on the lost device that means you can not randomly track any phone with this app.
Download: Lost Phone Tracker
So, which one is your favorite of the lot?
