Keep an Android Phone Safe

Posted: February 18, 2016

[caption id="attachment_12605" align="alignright" width="386"] Image from pcworld.com[/caption] Most everyone today will admit that their phone is their connection to the world. With the private data stored on our phones, it can be a potential disaster if it's stolen. Take steps to protect your Android phone from getting lost or stolen. Lincoln Spector, writer for PC World, shares how to protect your phone from loss or theft.

Protect Your Android Phone From Loss or Theft

Every mugger and pickpocket in the world knows that your smartphone represents hundreds of dollars in hardware and information. Here's how to protect that asset. Nothing is foolproof. But, by taking the correct precautions beforehand, you can reduce the likelihood of crooks accessing your data, and make it easier to find your phone’s location. You can even make the phone itself pretty much useless to the thieves or anyone they sell it to. I’ll stick to Android here, although the basic information, if not the exact instructions, should work with any phone or tablet. Don’t underestimate the importance of the so-called “kill switch,” which makes a stolen phone useless by requiring a password to perform a factory reset. Google made this a default feature with Android Lollipop. Again, nothing is foolproof, but the kill switch works often enough to significantly discourage thieves. According to a Consumer Reports article, the number of stolen phones dropped from 3.1 million in 2013 to 2.1 in 2014 as kill switches became popular. If you think your phone has been stolen, work fast. The sooner you follow the suggestions below, the better. Even if you haven’t taken protective measures ahead of time, you may still be able to locate a lost or stolen phone—assuming you have a Google account and use it on the phone. On any PC or device with an Internet connection, log in to your Google account and go to Your Timeline. Read the entire article Protect Your Android Phone From Loss or Theft on PC World.