Protect your Android device with Lookout Mobile Security.

Todays mobile devices (such as phones) run more and more advanced and complex operating systems, so a protection suite is something needed now. When I got my Android phone (Nexus One), I've started looking for a mobile antivirus. I got one which offered only antivirus protection, but I wasn't satisfied with it, so I tried Lookout, and it really impressed me.

This is not just an antivirus. It has a very useful backup mechanism, and for extra protection, it also has a device locating system (named "Missing Device"). Additionally, in the last system, a method for making your device scream is also included, to help you in case that you lost your device and you think it's somewhere near you.

When you install the application, you have to create an account. Later, this account is going to be used in order to manage various tasks, such as: details about scanned and infected files, viewing, managing and sending back to your phone data which has been saved (via backup), locating and making your device scream, and some other tasks.

The entire system works perfectly. It happened for me several times to download infected apps from the Market, and Lookout blocked them. I also tried to locate my device, and it located (not instantly) my phone impressive exactly (it indicated an area of about 50 meters, as when I tried to locate it I was inside a hotel room).

After you create an account, you can enter on https://www.mylookout.com/user/login, from where you can see real-time details about your phone. From here, you can do anything I told you. You can even set how frequent should your device be scanned and backup procedures done.

It works with Android 2.1 and Android 2.2 (tested by me). Search it on the Android Market: "Lookout".

Microsoft offers free antivirus protection for Genuine Windows users.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus program for those who have genuine copies of Windows. As I'm not using (at all) any OS from MS I wasn't able to test it, but I can tell you some details and what is being told about it. So, what's good is that it is free (of course, if your copy of Windows is licensed) and it is made by Microsoft, who knows exactly what's inside the operating system so they can fix any vulnerability faster than a regular security company.

They say that it protects your computer against viruses, spyware and other kinds of malicious software, all in real-time. What I think that is bad, simply because it is made by Microsoft, is that it may fail regularly in different situations (fake alarms, issues when running, weak detection and stuff). But this is not something proven and is based on my past experience with Microsoft's products.

Those who tested said that it detected and resolved several threats better than NOD32, and even used less resources, but I doubt that this is something relevant (as I haven't seen any "serious" tests). There are comments on blogs where this product was reviewed in which the people told that it is a very bad protection program, because it wasn't able to detect important trojans/viruses so my doubts come also from here.

You can download and try Microsoft Security Essentials from http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/ .