Lookout Mobile Security (2014)

Pros: Excellent mobile interface; Fastest scan with least impact on phone's performance; Helpful Privacy Advisor feature; Scans for adware Cons: Malware detection less than perfect; No blacklists; Lacks ability to create user profiles or protect apps Verdict: Lookout Mobile Security is an excellent mobile security app that offers an intuitive interface and useful privacy features with negligible performance impact. It may seem like a relative newcomer to the anti-virus field, but Lookout created one of the first mobile security solutions in 2008, and its mobile-only emphasis is reflected in its app's excellent interface design and streamlined approach. Compared to the other anti-malware apps we tested, the Lookout Mobile Security app has little impact on your smartphone's performance, even when it's conducting a full-system malware scan. Lookout Mobile Security recently added more nuanced adware-detection (aside from being annoying, adware can drain battery life and bandwidth). Add it all up, and Lookout is a very strong package. MORE: Best Android Anti-Virus Software 2014 Setup Setting up Lookout Mobile Security is simple. We downloaded the free app from the Google Play store, installed it on our Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 and then ran through a brief tutorial. The app asks you to create a Lookout account with a username and password, and then gives you the option to upgrade to a premium account for $3 per month (or $30 per year). It also asks for permission to gather data for analysis from your phone or tablet in order to help the company respond to further threats. If you choose No Thanks to the premium offer, the app won't continue to beat you over the head with it, which we appreciated. You can add multiple devices to a single premium account at no extra charge. The whole setup process took about 2 minutes. Once that's done, the app immediately scans your device for malware. Interface Lookout Mobile Security's main interface is divided into two sections. The top shows notifications, such as which apps have been scanned recently. The bottom lists Lookout's other features: Security, Backup, Missing Device, Safe Browsing and Privacy Advisor, the last two of which are for premium subscribers only. Pressing the Menu button (which varies among Android devices) calls up the app's Settings, Account and Help. Overall, Lookout offers the best interface design of all the apps we tested. The layout is both intuitive and informative, and communicates a lot of information without becoming overwhelming or confusing. Detection and performance We put Lookout Mobile Security's malware scanner to the test by downloading, via the phone's Chrome browser, a ".com" version (a type of DOS executable) of the EICAR standard anti-virus test file. As soon as we initiated the download, a Lookout pop-up appeared, warning us that the file was a virus and asking if we wanted to remove it. We could also press More Info to get a detailed description of the virus. We tried downloading the file through the Firefox browser, to which Lookout's premium "Safe Browsing" feature does not extend. Even then, Lookout caught EICAR before the download even began. However, when we downloaded EICAR to an unprotected phone and then installed Lookout Mobile Security afterward, a malware scan didn't find the EICAR file. A Lookout representative told us that the app only scans recently downloaded files in order to save memory. MORE: Mobile Security Guide: Everything You Need to Know "If a user ever attempted to install a malicious app (not just download), we would detect it before it was installed," a Lookout representative said in an emailed statement. Since our last review of Lookout Mobile Security, the app has added detection to flag the most intrusive types of adware that can plague Android phones. Other security apps do this as well; McAfee and Kaspersky flag adware as "potentially unwanted programs" (PUPs) by default, and Avast identifies adware in its Privacy Advisor feature, not its malware scan. But Lookout has demonstrated the most consistent commitment to flagging problematic adware, even creating Mobile App Advertising Guidelines to better define the line between supporting a developer and invading users' privacy. German independent anti-malware testing lab AV-Test hasn't evaluated Lookout since September 2013, possibly because Lookout isn't widely used outside North America. Nevertheless, AV-Test's examination of Lookout 8.21 on Android 4.3 found that the app detected 99.4 percent of malware samples. That's much higher than the industry average of 90.5 percent. However, of the other mobile-security apps we tested, the offerings from Norton, Kaspersky and McAfee each achieved perfect malware-detection scores from AV-Test. Avast wasn't far behind, with 98.7 percent. MORE: Best Anti-Virus Software 2014 Lookout has spent the past year optimizing its app's speed, and it showed in our performance tests. We saw a Geekbench 3 score of 2,145 before installing Lookout Mobile Security on our Galaxy S4, and then a slightly improved rating of 2,166 afterward. We then ran Geekbench three times while Lookout's anti-virus scan was running and saw a slightly lower reading of 2,036. That's a performance hit of just 130 points, which makes Lookout far and away the best-performing app in this regard. All of the other security apps we tested showed a significantly higher delta, including Avast (626 points), Norton (656), Kaspersky (774) and McAfee (1,064). Whatever performance hit Lookout does cause, it's minimal, and should be undetectable by users. Anti-theft and data protection Tapping Missing Device on Lookout's home screen displays Lookout's extensive anti-theft features. When you run it for the first time, you'll be asked to enable two different settings: Location Services and GPS, and Better Protection. Tapping the former brings up a screen where you're asked to switch "Access to my location" to On, giving Lookout permission to access your phone's location services. It's an extra step to ask for permission, but we like how the app never assumes it knows better than you do. After initial setup, the Missing Device screen displays a Google Maps image of your device's location. You can locate it, as well as see a log of its recorded locations, from the Web portal. The Signal Flare feature, unique to Lookout, also automatically records your phone's GPS location and emails it to you when the device's battery is about to die. The second feature, Better Protection, lets you remotely erase your device's data, change the screen-unlock password and make the phone emit a loud alarm, as well as monitor the number of times someone tries and fails to unlock the screen. You can also set the device to silently take a picture with the front-facing camera and email it to you if someone enters five incorrect passcodes. These are all pretty standard features for mobile-security apps. Lookout's Backup feature lets you sync contact info, photos and call history to Lookout's cloud servers. In comparison, McAfee and Avast back up text messages, call logs, contacts and media files such as photos and videos, and Avast also backs up apps. (Norton can only back up users' contacts, and Kaspersky's security app offers no backup at all.) MORE: 7 Best Mobile Password Managers On the data-protection side, Lookout's premium Safe Browsing feature scans the websites you visit via the default Android browser and with Chrome, and lets you know if the website you're currently trying to access is potentially malicious. Norton's and Kaspersky's security apps have nearly identical features, but McAfee's Web protection only extends to the Android browser. Avast's protection, on the other hand, covers Chrome, the Android Browser, Amazon's Silk browser and the Chinese Boat Browser; support for the Dolphin browser is in development. We loved Lookout's premium Privacy Advisor feature, which scans installed apps and shows you the types of personal information they access, thus greatly increasing transparency about what happens on your device. Only Avast's Privacy Advisor feature offers a more nuanced look at apps and how they impact your privacy. Lookout was the only app we reviewed that did not offer the ability to create blacklists and whitelists for incoming calls and texts, which can cut down on spam, phishing attempts and help parents keep their kids safe on their mobile devices. Web console Lookout's Web console is easy to access from Lookout.com — just hit the Log In button on the upper right of the front page. The Web portal layout is clean, simple and contains a ton of functionalities, ranging from a feature that lets you remotely locate or wipe your device to the ability to see and redownload backed-up contacts and photos. Unlike the other security suites we tested, Lookout's site also automatically logs you out if you're idle for too long, thus protecting your privacy and security. Premium vs. free Lookout Mobile Security's premium version costs $3 per month, or $30 per year. The free version includes anti-virus functionality, backup and most of the anti-theft features, including remote location and Signal Flare. The remote-lock and remote-wipe features are premium-only, as are the Safe Browsing and Privacy Advisor features. Verdict Lookout Mobile Security was built from the ground up to be a mobile-first anti-virus service, and it shows in the app's excellent interface and minimal performance impact. The setup process is simple and intuitive, and Lookout transparently explains every one of its processes so you know exactly what it's doing on your phone. We also like Lookout's solid range of features, particularly its Privacy Advisor. However, Lookout is missing a blacklist feature, and its malware-detection record isn't quite as pristine as Norton's, McAfee's or Kaspersky's. More advanced users might want to check out McAfee's or Avast's mobile-security apps. But if you want the best mix of protection, features and performance, Lookout will more than satisfy.