How To Ensure Your Android Device is Properly Secure

I would like to thank Androidapphut.com for this guest post. There are few solutions out there better for me when I’m looking for new things to do with my Android phone. In particular they have a lot of articles of Android apps I wouldn’t otherwise know about.

The Android operating system is one of the most popular ones on the markets today, and with good reason. It has a lot of functionality, is safer than some other operating systems, and is an all-around good choice for the average consumer.

It is precisely this level of availability and popularity that make it such a target for thieves both of the physical variety and the cyber-criminal variety who want to steal your personal information. You need to be able to secure your phone to its maximum potential and make sure that no one is going to give you a rough day because your phone was compromised.

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Credit: Alexander Shirokov

Here are a few pieces of advice and tips to make you make your Android device as safe as it can be.

 

Make Use of the Built-in Features

The Android operating system actually has a lot of features built into it that help it stay incredibly safe, in addition to being safer in general to this writer’s opinion. You will want to take a look at the settings available on your particular phone and decide which ones are the best for you. If you use it at home a lot, then you can be a little more relaxed than if you are taking it everywhere and anywhere.

You will also want to disable anything that might automatically connect you to a network that you don’t intend it to connect to. Your phone’s data plan is one of the safer options you have at your disposal for browsing, so consider using it before risking your phone anywhere else.

 

Only Download Trusted Apps

There are a lot of applications out there on the market that are compatible with Android phones, and these can often increase the efficiency and usefulness of these phones by a great degree. That being said, however, there are a lot of applications and programs out there, usually made by unknown developers that can pose a threat to your device and possibly collect data that you allow it to access or otherwise input into your device.

For the most part, the only apps you will ever need are those made by trusted develops or by companies that make an app as part of their service. If you are ever curious, however, there are usually reviews available online or you can search online for the name of the app and see if anything negative pops up.

 

Use a VPN

Android phones are compatible with using Virtual Private Networks, which is a good thing, considering that they are probably your best line of defense when you are using the internet on a public or otherwise unsecure network. Otherwise hackers might be able to read the data you send and receive (passwords, usernames, credit card information, etc.) with a pretty simple method that almost anyone can do.

What a VPN will do is it will create a kind of tunnel or secure road that your data will travel on. This tunnel connects to a secure offsite server and then the server will do the tasks you need for you and send you your requested data. This blocks out anyone looking and the best they’ll be able to do is know is that you are using a VPN (if that even).

 

Delete Cookies and Login Info

When you browse the internet on your Android device, how often do you clear the history or otherwise wipe clean your records of where you have surfed? You might want to make that a regular chore so someone who picks up your phone or looking over your shoulder doesn’t know where you’ve been.

In addition to this, how often do you clear your browser cookies and auto-login info from your phone? While these things are very useful in many circumstances, if anyone were to get ahold of your phone they might be able to use these things in order to mess around with your accounts or collect data on you. Also, some cookies might not be as benevolent as others and be there to collect data from your phone and send it elsewhere. For these reasons you should check and delete this information every couple of weeks.

 

Lock it Up

While you shouldn’t literally lock up your Android device in a box and never use it again, you should definitely be using your screen lock function to the best of your ability. There are all sorts of different options available on the latest phones and both the classic PIN-solutions and the biometric based solutions have their merits. The best thing to do is find something no one else can easily guess or notice as well as something that works for you. The most important thing is that it is hard to get into in the event that it gets stolen.

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Photo Credit: https://blog.avast.com

Thank you for reading, and I hope that your android phone or device is going to be that much better and safer for you knowing more about its security.

This was contributed by Caroline, a technology enthusiast whose main area of interest is internet security. Caroline recommends Secure Thoughts as one of the best possible online sources for information regarding internet security. Check out their reviews to find the best VPN for Android devices.