Lookout Security Antivirus

Lookout Security Antivirus

Our Verdict

Get this antivirus if you are interested in identity protection as one of your priorities. The antivirus comes free and mid-priced premiums plans which can’t compete with Bitdefender or Norton, but its high priced plans are cheap for an identity protection package.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Strong identity protection option
• Solid user interface
• A 14-day trial of the premium version
• Easy to use
• Effective web protection

Cons

• Minimal free feature
• Skimpy malware protection test data
• No telephone or chat tech support
• Heavy, slow plans

Introduction

Lookout security antivirus is one of the more popular antiviruses with over 100million downloads on google play, plus it also has a 4.4 rating. The antivirus free version comes with a system advisor which helps report OS issues, plus basic anti-theft functions, including location and scream, which is an alarm you can trigger remotely.

Lookout Security and antivirus are also referred to as lookout personal. It has shown its strength with the focus on identity protection. Since 2017 when the antivirus moved to its current business model, the antivirus has not made any changes to its features.

On the antivirus front, the lookout security antivirus will stand its ground against top contenders like Bitdefender mobile security and Norton mobile security. Android users will also value the lookout identity protection services and the accompanying identity insurance which are both competitively priced for the market.

Payment Plans

The antivirus comes in three tiers.

The Basic Free Plan

This plan comes with minimum features which include antivirus scanning, plus simple location tools and a system advisor.

The Premium Plan

The premium plan comes at around $2.99 a month and at $29.99 a year.

The premium plan comes with more features compared to the free plan. It will include a safe web browsing, WI-FI networks alerts, anti-theft capabilities, a private browser, a privacy adviser plus reports in case of any security breaches.

The Premium Plan Plus

The premium plan will cost you $9.99 a month while if you decide to pay for it for a year, it will require $99.99.

The plan comes with even more features than most other android antivirus apps. Apart from the features found in both the free plan and the premium plans, the plan also comes with a state of the art identity protection service and a $1 million insurance in case of identity theft. The plan will also include a 24/7 restoration assistance available in case you lose your identity or your online wallet.

The amount may seem quite steep for an android identity protection service, however, the amount in comparison to other stand-alone identity protection devices is quite small. Most will come from around $300.

The lookout antivirus does not come with software based for PCs or Macs, unlike most brands.

Set Up

Installing the antivirus will only take you a few seconds, with no hassle of any kind. You will need an email address to get you a free account, after which the antivirus will ran a basic scan on your device and begin monitoring it for any threats.

after the scan he app will show a pretty simple interface with a message on the results of the scan after installation. The interface will also show the time of the scan plus a large green tick to enforce the results of the scan. If there are any viruses however, there will be a large red X sign to reinforce the same.

The antivirus comes with a bit more detail in case you need it. If you navigate to security on the antivirus menu, you will find an app screen with a list of recent actions plus a scan now button which can be used to run on demand checks. This may not be necessary however, as lookout security will scan and warn you in case of any security threats or risky apps that, may be present on the device.

The antivirus setting box will offer you control over security, giving you the option to enable or disable the analysis of app or downloads. This may be helpful in many scenarios, such as apps that may seem as threats to the antivirus, yet you are sure they are safe.

The app comes with a 14-day trial, and depending on which plan you subscribe to, you will access all the relevant features of the chosen plan.

Protection

The antivirus will check apps as they come in to the phone for any kind of malware virus adware riskware and any kind of threat that may come in.

An AV-comparative test carried out in 2016.The antivirus managed to block 85.2 % of real time threats introduced to it.

Malware Protection

The antivirus comes with one of the longest full scan at around 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Unfortunately, as with most android antiviruses, the lookout security and antivirus can also not accommodate a scheduled scan. The best advice would be to scan the phone at a time when it is idle, maybe when you go to sleep.

In case the antivirus detects a threat in the form of a web link, there will be a notification on top of the screen to inform you of a blocked malicious link. The antivirus will however give you the option to continue with the link. You will also have the option to pull down the notification shade, tap it to see the full info contained in the pop-up.

With that said the feature did not work with blocking known malicious test sites in all six browsers installed in the phone.

Malware Detection

The lookout mobile security currently does not submit the app for AV tests any longer, after their last through the German independent lab AV-TEST, which is the bench mark for how android antivirus products block malware.

The last time the app was tested as previously stated was 2016, and the reaction for the app may not have been as successful. The test for real-time online threats registered at 85.2% while the tests for widespread malware samples registered at 77.3%.

The antivirus was also teste in 2018 through the AV-comparatives android blanket evaluations. The antivirus however did not work to well. it passed at 93.9% detection rate, which placed it ahead of google paly protect, which came at 75.3%. 360 securities aka Qihoo 360 passed at 99.3%, while Avast, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, McAfee and Norton all got perfect 100% marks.

A different lab however, the AV-Comparatives conducts the lesser granular and frequent android antivirus tests. Lookout security and antivirus was included in the AV-comparatives blanket test a recent as January 2019, were the antivirus performed extremely well, reaching 99.6% detection rate. The antivirus assessed and performed well among 250 android security apps. It beat some of the big commercial apps in the sit such as Malwarebytes, Checkpoint, Qihoo, Webroot, Panda, Dr. Web, IObit, Comodo and more.

Looking at the trajectory of the antivirus, the app has been developing overtime, increasing its effectiveness.

Free Plan Security Features

The Lookout antivirus will come with some important features for the free user. If the phone is lost, the antivirus comes with the option of locating the phone and making it ‘scream’ from the web portal at personal.lookout.com

The phone will take just a little time to find the new phone, roughly three minutes.

The portal itself on the other hand is standard and comes with a full-screen map and overlay with icons to trigger the number of functions.

Another security feature that comes with the antivirus is the signal flare. This comes in when the smartphone is about to die, which will record the phones last known location and post it to the web portal.

The antivirus comes with a behind the scenes feature which was just recently introduced to the Lookout app. The system advisor will occasionally look through your system for root detections and ensure proper functioning of the OS.

Premium Security Features and Tools

Breach Report

The antivirus comes with a breach report. It provides two aspects to look at in the breach report. The first way will show you a breach through any services connected to the app installed the second way is through presenting a news feed listing all the latest breach. The second way will come with instructions on what to do in case you become infected, plus a link to the source article for the breach.

The feed the antivirus will provide will be well curated for the security beach involved, and may be proved to be quite the interesting feed.

Privacy Adviser

The antivirus will allow you to view which app potentially have access to any data or hardware on your device. If you navigate to the category, the app will show you the full list of apps with access to your camera. A good example is through tapping o an individual app which will show you the permissions it could have and will allow you to manage the positions.

A con with this feature however is that the antivirus may not be aware of an allowed app and a disallowed app, this means that you will have to view the permissions, however it is misleading in as far as identifying legitimate privacy concerns.

Safe Browsing

The antivirus comes with a VPN service.

If you choose the premium or premium plus plan, then you can run the VPN constantly. The antivirus doesn’t offer any customizability on some of the other antivirus apps VPN offerings.

The VPN is meant to protect the antivirus from any accessing any malicious downloads, phishing sites and more.

The way safe browsing works, it will redirect your web traffic through a VPN connection, you can however only have one VPN connection at a time. The VPN will rarely have any interruptions plus it will also come with safe browsing.

Safe Wi-Fi

The antivirus will also scan your Wi-Fi network, and it will establish whether there are any threats that may coming through this. The only downside to this is that it may miss flagging some local Wi-Fi.

Anti-Theft Protection

If you choose the premium or premium plus plans, you can remotely lock or also wipe your device. The option comes with a lock command which will allow you to add an email address, phone number and customer message which will display on the lock screen if anyone happens to find the device. The feature will be working within seconds.

The premium plan comes with another option for setting up triggers which will make your phone email you photo from your front-facing camera, including the location of your device. This triggers come with multiple failed passcode attempts, SIM card removal, airplane mode being switched on, plus the device being switched off and the lookout also getting uninstalled.

Premium Plus Security Features and Tools

Identity Restoration & Features

If you are paying $99.9 a year, then you expect some kind of important element to the plan. For this antivirus, the identity theft protection is the kicker. You may decide to look at dedicated identity theft solutions, however, through the lookout premium plus plan, all your problems will get solved by one app.

Although the price may seem a bit steep, the app offers quite a reasonable offer through this plan. The app will come with a 24/7 identity restoration assistant, a lost wallet recovery protocol, plus a $1 million identity theft insurance, in case of losses related to theft.

In case you need to get I contact with the restoration experts in a jiffy, you can navigate to the ”contact us” link located at the bottom of the screen, found at the insurance tab.

The onsite legal documentation for the service provides that the third party insurance vendor lookout uses interstate fire and casualty Co. of Chicago, a subsidiary of German financial service giant Allianz.

Identity Theft Protection

The other side of the premium plus plan is based on fining your private information where it shouldn’t be online. You have the option to either enter personal information financial information or your social security number. Lookout will monitor the web for any signs of this data and will notify you in case they find anything

The application will also come with a social media watch feature, which will scan any connected social media apps such a Facebook twitter LinkedIn and Instagram. In case any personal information is found or if you post or are tagged, in any potential offensive content then the app will inform you.

System Impact

Evaluating the impact of running lookout security and antivirus on the device will require a number of tests. This will require the Geekbench 4 android benchmarking tool on the Google Pixel 3 phone which runs on Android 9.0 Pie.

You will require to first establish a bassline performance for the device before you decide to install lookout. Yo will then have to run additional tests following installation, after which you can run more tests for full malware scans.

The results show that lookout had little background system impact after the installation, and a 0.48% drop off from the bassline average Geekbench 4 results. The full scan had more effect with a 10.6% performance decrease.

This results show that lookout near the top of the pack at number three of the eight, in terms of the passive results. When it came to active scanning, the antivirus tested at nearly the bottom though. However, it was much closer to the few apps just above it than to 360 security which came in last.

Backup Feature

Another great thing about the lookout antivirus app in the backup feature. If you want to route your phone and even perform a factory reset, the phone will end up losing all the contacts and apps on the phone. With the aps backup feature, you will only need to go to the online page to get to know what has been backed up. The app will backup automatically in case you forget to do so on your own.

When you access your online profile with the backup feature, you will get a list of all your contacts which you can then download through Excel or a vCard, for import to your phone after.

Find Your Phone

Another great feature that comes with the paid versions of the app are the possibility of locating your phone. The app is quite good, and may surprise you. As long as you leave your GPS working efficiently, the app will locate the phone with no problems. You can also use the map features on the app or also bring them to another device which will help you triangulate where he device is located.

If you also feel trusting that whoever found your phone will return it, you can send them an email alert giving them a way to contact you. The lookout app will also provide an area on the online dashboard where you can see previous locations. If by any chance someone else possesses the phone, then it will show you the phone is on the move and then you may get the chance to follow the phone.

Enterprise

Another amazing feature with the lookout app is the enterprise feature which is best suited for businesses. This is best suited for businesses who have a couple of devices they intend to protect and keep them away from theft. The company will quote you different prices meant for all companies, and you will be required to contact them to get the rates.

Setup and Support

When it comes to support and setup, the lookout antivirus does an excellent job of guiding you through the setup. The app doesn’t really have any features that may bog you down with a lot of steps, and protocols or features that may make it extensibly harder to use the app.

When the comes to customer support, the app will not take anything other than email for customer support. The app will come with no options for chat, social media support or troubleshooting questions.

According to the company, the app does not provide customer support because there is little way to verify whether you are the direct user or client speaking through the phone, as opposed to email, where you can be confirmed as the original writer as you have the same email registered. However, this does not prevent other antiviruses like Avast, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, McAfee and Norton offering telephone support for their customers.

The antivirus also comes with a FAQ option for their users. You can find solutions through the FAQ before submitting a request to customer support through email. At the bottom of the antivirus page, you will find the ‘Help’ section where you can access the FAQ.

The FAQ will come with a number of common issues which may be on the lane of what is causing you trouble as you use the app. The apps FAQ comes with well explained situation you may be going through, of which if they do not cover your problem, then you can go to the email support.

Lookout Antivirus Interface

The lookout app interphase coms with a clean minimal interface well suited for your needs. The interface does a great job of fitting a good number of features into each screen, and it will not overwhelm you, neither will it force you to scroll down.

The antivirus will also come with a settings option that will not be as obvious to navigate to, plus, anyway you will rarely find yourself there, but if you need to it is quite easy to reach. However due to the way the settings are located and the interface is laid out, the app is quite tidy to look at.

conclusion

in case you require identity protection and insurance, then the lookout app is the perfect choice for you. However, you should compare the antivirus against some few other to certify its efficiency before settling, plus the free trial should serve as a great chance to take a look at the antivirus at work.