Gadgetory

welcome to tap that app I'm Seth Rosenblatt and this is the show where we show off some of the hottest mobile apps around I've got three top-notch Android security apps for you to check out each with different strengths first off we're checking out the free lookout which has gained a lot of popularity and media attention thanks to its lost phone location service if your phone gets lost or stolen you can jump on to lookouts website and assuming your phone is on and has battery life and the GPS enabled you can track your phone's location this is a must-have feature for phones the service has been used by police to track stolen phones you can also fire off a car alarm style scream from your missing phone to let you know where it is or to annoy whoever's stolen it lookout also offers contacts backup and adds photo backup when you upgrade to the premium version for about 30 bucks a year look how its main feature though is its scanning technology if the company is working on something that calls the app Genome Project which verifies as safe thousands of apps across multiple marketplaces and checks your apps as you download them next up we've got windows security powerhouse AVG which recently bought its way into the Android Marketplace by picking up Israeli firm droid security the app does many of the same things that lookout does and it has more features in the free version than look out the free AVG antivirus for Android has a password-protected app Locker and lost phone locator too it's not as polished as lookouts though in fact the apps entire interface isn't as polished as lookouts with a main screen that's too simple where are the rest of the options still AVG Antivirus is back up is more robust in the free version that lookouts with contacts SMS system settings and app settings backup although even the paid upgrade doesn't offer photo backup its premium version is a lot cheaper though at 10 bucks for a year lastly we've got Trend Micro's mobile security app which takes a completely different approach along with the scan the company has ported its Smart Protection Network for guarding against phishing attacks to Android it only works in the default browser for now but that's a start there's no phone locator service although there our parental controls and call and text message blocking for those you can use a whitelist or a blacklist Trend Micro's app isn't free instead of coming with a 30-day trial after what you'll have to shell out four bucks to get protected all three of these apps are recommended although lookout does the best job at the moment of offering a strong combo of usability features and protection that's it for this week's show and if you've got any suggestions bang them on over to tap that app at cnet.com I'm Seth Rosenblatt and we'll see you next week