Anti-Theft Apps - how tall have you built the fortress walls on your device(s)?

Getting back into the spirit of writing (if there even is one), I found myself stumped today with where to pick things up from my somewhat lengthy absence. It was only as I was trawling through my G+ feed, searching for a source for inspiration that I was startled by the high-pitched, irritating tone of a security alarm fitted on the newly built house next door. Not showing an immediate concern for whatever was happening next door, I tried to drown out the sound with tunes but to no avail - 'Gimme Shelter' just wasn't the same with an alarm sounding in the background. After a good 3 minutes, I checked outside my window to see what all the fuss was about and realised the slip-up was caused by a real estate agent who had no clue how to turn the alarm off.

Photo of an old Gregory's map from the 1940s that we have in the family - unusual that it knew
 we'd  need to know the location of our mobile telephones one day...

It was then that I began to think about security. What would happen if you lost your precious gem of a phone at a restaurant, or on public transport - or worse yet, it was stolen. How would you react, and what methods do you have in place to safeguard any data that may be sensitive?




For my age, I would say I'm pretty forgetful. On numerous occasions, I've forgotten backpacks that have been between my legs at Internet cafes or restaurants, and most recently, I left a number of 21st birthday gifts at a restaurant. Thankfully, on each of these occasions I've managed to recover these lost items, and though every time I leave a public place I make sure to check each of my pockets to make sure important things like my phone and wallet are on me - I still manage to lose objects that involve carrying. Others aren't so lucky however, and in an unfortunate turn of events manage to lose something important like their smartphone.

A simple Google account recovery

Anti-theft apps and software are something I've delved little into. I know in the end it would be best to have services set up in case the worse happens, but I've not got around to understanding how to use these apps and services, partly because I still carry a child's view of immortality with regards to the likeliness of losing my phone. It's deplorable I know - I'm just asking for something bad to go wrong, and after writing this I'm sure something will happen, which is why I must get serious about this.

There's actually no reason not to consider protecting your phone in the case of an incident such as loss or theft. We use our smartphones far more than ever, and we store personal information and data that could be very useful to anyone who managed to get hold of it. Software has reached the stage where we can lock out other SIM cards, sound alarms, remotely locate our phone and snap a photo of who is using your device by way of the front facing camera and more - even allowing users to wipe their data remotely for added security.

Paying a small fee per year (or better, a one-time payment), is well worth the piece of mind - knowing if anything were to happen to your device, that you stand a chance of recovering it, or at least making it useless for whoever gets hold of it.

What are you're thoughts? Do you use anti-theft applications, or at least have an app like Google Authenticator to further protect your Google data from prying eyes?