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The Best Mobile Security Apps | PCMag.com

Addicted to your mobile device? Be safer rather than sorry by downloading any one of the following mobile security apps.
                                       
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•                 By Sara Yin
  
• March 27, 2012
• 2 Comments
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       Do you really need mobile security? That depends who you ask.  Team FUD will roll its eyes and tell you that mobile malware is pure  F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), a creation of security vendors  trying to sell you their solutions. Team Sec will tell you that it's  only a matter of time before mobile infection rates—currently less than 5  five percent for Android users—explode to Windows-like proportions.

   We're in Team Better Safe Than Sorry. If you rely on your mobile devices  as much as we do, and at this point store more sensitive information on  your smartphones and tablets than in your wallets, mobile security  software will help you sleep easy at night.  

   After all, antivirus is only one component of mobile security software.  More so than on desktops, there's an increasing concern over mobile  privacy. Because mobile technology is relatively new, and consumer  protection policies have yet to be written, we're still relatively  helpless to companies aggressively mining, tracking, and storing  sensitive mobile data. Last fall, many Android owners felt blindsided  learning of a piece of bloatware that had long existed in their devices,  Carrier IQ, which tracked every all their actions. In January, we saw  another particularly aggressive ad network called "Apperhand" dropped in  free Android apps. The API would place a search icon on your mobile  desktop without your permission, push ads through your notice bar, and  redirect search queries to a pay-per-click search engine. In February,  Path, a popular photo app on iOS, infuriated users when who belatedly  discovered that the app stored all their contact information without  explicitly asking permission. None of these things are malicious in the  traditional security sense, but I'm willing to bet if you had a choice,  you'd rather not have these features on your devices at all.  

   As such, mobile security suites like the ones listed below cover the  whole gamut of mobile threats: antimalware, mobile firewall,  call/voice/text blocking, warnings for privacy-invading apps, and  protection of your data in the event the phone is lost or stolen.  Android is the fastest-growing operating system in the world, as well as  the fastest-growing mobile target, which is why this list is  Android-dominated.  

   Apple iOS threats are largely satisfied by tweaking native security settings, but downloading one app—Lookout for iPhone—will placate any paranoia.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP:
         
               Bitdefender Mobile Security
       
         Free, $9.99/year for Premium
         A lot of traditional security vendors simply port desktop security to  the phone. Not Bitdefender. This app runs quietly in the background of  your Android device, but offers only average virus protection according  to independent labs AV-test.org. You get what you pay for, I guess.           Read the full review ››

     
               F-Secure Mobile Security 7.6
       
         Free, $39.99/year for Premium
         F-Secure offers top-notch mobile antivirus protection thanks to the  brainiacs plugged in at the world renowned F-Secure Labs. It bundles  parental controls and will appeal to parents of Android-wielding  children. But there are slicker mobile security apps for adult  consumers.          Read the full review ››



     
               Lookout for Android
       
         Free, $29.99/year for Premium
        You can tell Lookout is the only mobile-only security company in this  group. This well-designed app combines an appealing, made-for-mobile UI  with powerful antivirus, remote controls, data backup, firewall, and app  auditor.           Read the full review ››



     

               McAfee Mobile Security 2.0
       
         Free, $29.99/year for Premium
         It's an aggressive little app that alerts as frequently as a desktop  antivirus, but McAfee Mobile offers powerful end-to-end protection.  Bonus: unlimited cloud backup.           Read the full review ››