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ESET Mobile Security is an Android app designed to keep users safe on their Android smartphones or tablets, no matter where they are. This all-in-one security suite offers you the ability to scan your device for malicious apps as well as the ability to protect yourself from phishing scams. Powerful proactive anti-theft protection offers you to locate your phone, or take a picture of the person who found it. ESET Mobile Security is a great way of keeping your device safe and sound, so let’s give a try and see what it’s like.
To get started with Mobile Security & Antivirus from ESET, you just need to download it from the Play Store. Those looking to keep email and offers from ESET to a minimum have a choice to ignore these offers at setup:
There’s also an option to try out the premium features for free as well, which include proactive anti-theft and anti-phishing features.
ESET will first start up and start a scan straight away. The main menu is simple and easy to use, and even the non tech-savvy among us will be able to get the hang of things.
For a lot of users, the antivirus will be an important feature, and it is indeed a thorough scan, not just looking at the apps you have installed, but also the storage on your device and the apps and games that might have downloaded something to your phone without your knowledge.
My phone got all the clear, which was of course nice to see, but there’s more to ESET Mobile Security of course, like the proactive anti-theft features, which are nice and easy to set up and get running.
The proactive Anti-theft features include some pretty standard and also advanced features. The ability to locate your device is included in this.
More than that however, you can also use this feature to snap a picture of the person who found your device. This is a feature I think is really handy. Not only can you quickly tell if someone from the store or one of your friends or family has picked up your device, but you could also pass this image on to the police.
An interesting feature of ESET Mobile Security is the Security Audit, accessible from main menu, which claims to let you know which apps have access to what and such.
Here, we can see that ESET has informed me that the above apps can cost me money, which I am assuming is to do with internet and SMS usage, but clicking on them – like the Microsoft Health app for instance – does nothing but send me on to the app’s setting page within Android.
This isn’t exactly all that helpful, as I can’t do anything about the info that ESET has told me about, perhaps if I were using Android 6.0 Marshmallow I could, but I’m on Android 5.1.1.
Keeping your device safe these days is much more than just scanning the apps and content you have on your device but also what you do on the web and where you go, which is where anti-phishing comes in.
As you can see, this works with Google Chrome, which covers the majority of Android users, and it works to protect you from known phishing sites by simply preventing the site from loading on your device.
After taking a look at what ESET Mobile Security has to offer, I can see that there’s a lot of value here, especially for those that have either been hit by a phishing scam before or have sensitive info on their device. I do a lot of things with my Android smartphone, and not a single malicious app was found on my device, but this is because I regularly uninstall unwanted apps and only use the Google Play Store. For people where that isn’t an option, something like ESET can be a real help and prevent unwanted issues arising on your device. I didn’t think the Security Audit did much to be honest, and I wish that the Anti-theft feature had a little more oomph behind it, but for an app that offers up a lot of these features all in one place, ESET Mobile Security is worth looking into.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – ESET didn’t slow down my device one bit, and everything it did on my device was done fairly quickly.
- Features (5/5) – ESET ticks all of the right boxes, and while the Security Audit isn’t all that great, everything else you would expect and want from an antivirus and security app is here and implemented well.
- Theme (3.5/5) – The overall look and feel of ESET Mobile Security feels a little dated, font and icons are large and seem as if they were designed for a much older version of Android.
- Overall (4/5) – Altogether, ESET Mobile Security has a whole lot on offer, and to keep you safe online as well as make sure nothing stored on your device is doing something it shouldn’t be, ESET Mobile Security is a safe bet.
Pros
- Anti-theft option allows users to get a look at whoever has found their phone with the snapshot feature.
- Simple and easy to use for all types of users, regardless of how tech-savvy they might be.
- With anti-phishing and support for Google Chrome the majority of users will be protected when surging or shopping online and so on.
- Real-time protection lets people stop worrying and just be alerted when they need to be.
Cons
- Overall look and feel seems developed for a much older version of Android.
- Security Audit lets people know what an app might have access to, but doesn’t actually let them do anything with the information.
All-in-all, ESET Mobile Security is a great app for those looking for a comprehensive mobile security solution. Regardless of whether you end up losing your phone, stumbling into a shady part of the web or installing an app you shouldn’t have, ESET has the requisite tools to take care of your device and the information stored on it.
