I’ve rooted my phone and installed avast mobile security and set up a fake app name. When I go in to Anti-theft and set it to “hide”, all it hides is the fake app; avast remains visible. If I don’t “hide” it, sometimes the fake app is visible (along with the avast app) and other times it’s not (i.e, only avast is visible). I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE (i727r from Rogers in Canada).
I should add that I reinstalled the app and got the same result.
Hi,
if you set Anti-Theft to hide, only the Anti-Theft is hidden (= the fake app), that is correct behavior.
Filip
My fake app is still visible? Says in blurb
Stealth Mode
Once anti-theft is enabled, the app icon is hidden in the app tray, leaving no audio or other trace on the target phone – the app is ‘invisible’, making it difficult for thieves to detect or remove.
However it still appears in the applications list.
Also, surely if a thief spots the unhidden avast antivirus app they are likely to hard reset the phone anyway as it’s unlikely that anybody would have that and not the antitheft part.
hi, if you really want you can uninstall Mobile Security part and Anti Theft will continue working.
If the fake app runs it is possible that it is visible in some app managers sometimes - however using its “disguised” name.
If you have a rooted device (seems like it), the anti-theft part will survive the factory reset.
Filip
Not rooted. So easy to get round unfortunatly.
Also I can get to the anti theft options from the avast mobile app anyway. It’s no different than what I get from calling my PIN.
Am I missing the point?
hi, if you really want you can uninstall Mobile Security part and Anti Theft will continue working.
If the fake app runs it is possible that it is visible in some app managers sometimes - however using its “disguised” name.
This does not make sense to me. Why would you hide the fake app when the thief won’t know what it does? Showing the real app warns the thief that there’s something to get rid of.
sorry, i dont understand.
I think Robnw means, why hide an innocuous app name as that would be suspicious, why would anyone hide say ‘cross-words’ if that were the obscured name give to anti-theft.
So along come said thief with a litte knowledge about androis and apps, etc. he would know about hidden apps and think why are they hiding the ‘cross-words’ app.
what I’m asking is: why would you hide a fake app like “cross-words” which has no meaning to a thief but display avast! mobile security which is more likely to have meaning to the thief? Especially when both give full access to the app.
As has been said in this topic, uninstalling the avast mobile security doesn’t uninstall the anti-theft module.
That is a reason for using the hide feature as it is that which I believe allows you to rename that module to something more secure (less obvious as to its purpose). So I’m not entirely sure if hide is the right word. The whole idea isn’t 100% fail safe, but the longer it remains hidden the more chance you have of locating the phone.
Now I don’t know how this effects the new anti-theft removal wizard, added to the last AMS update (about 48 hours ago) as that appears in the AMS settings.
I haven’t set this up on my phone yet as ideally I want to root it before reinstalling AMS and then enabling the anti-theft module, so it can survive a factory reset.
Ah, I didn’t understand at all that it was to reduce the chance of uninstalling the anti-theft portion. I assumed it was meant to hide the fact that an anti-theft tool was on the phone. Me thinks you should either hide both or not bother with the fake app and only hide the avast! mobile security. A thief who knows about and see’s avast! mobile security will know to look for the fake app.
So if I uninstall the fake app, does it uninstall everything or only the anti-theft portion? And if I uninstall avast! mobile security, does it uninstall everything except for the anti-theft portion?
As far as I’m aware it isn’t that easy to uninstall the fake app and requires additional measures not least the password.
Yes, uninstalling the AMS uninstalls everything other than the anti-theft module.
Contrary to my post count (from the main avast antivirus forums), I’m very much a novice user of AMS, so I’m not too familiar with it workings yet. In view of the addition of the anti-theft uninstall wizard, the various documentation also needs to be updated.
F.A.Q. - See https://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=1034
and http://www.avast.com/en-us/free-mobile-security
Avast! Mobile Security Guide - http://files.avast.com/files/documentation/mobile-security-user-guide-en.pdf
Hopefully it won’t be long before that happens.
It makes absolutely NO SENSE to display the app title “AVAST MOBILE SECURITY” and call this a stealth app. The old Theft Aware, which I had and worked perfectly, hid itself and only the “fake” app name was visible. Any thief who’s not a complete idiot would see the mobile security in the app tray and either toss or destroy the phone. Come on, guys! It’s a simple task : make the app invisible.
If you want the best anti-theft safety, you can just uninstall AMS. The Anti-Theft module will stay intact.
From the other point of view it makes no sense to hide an antivirus application. We still get complaints about the notification icon disappearing making an impression of device not being protected anymore etc.
Filip
ok, thank you all for helping me understand this.
A suggestion for the future: leave the fake app visible and hide AMS. Or hide both. Less obvious to the thief that there’s something to address.
Make everything configurable ;D
Agree +1