Secure Messages and Calls Using App Lock – Although mobile phones are supposed to be personal in many cases, it is challenging to protect your personal stuff, such as messages and phone calls, from the prying eyes of your friends and family members to whom saying a simple no is not an option. That is one scenario where you require privacy, but there are several other situations where you would not want anyone to read your messages or call details from your smartphone.
Thankfully, applications like ‘App Lock’ can help you secure applications that you do not want others to access. It is not just limited to phone and messaging apps, but many other applications such as Whatsapp or Facebook, or any other applications other application. With App Lock, you can lock down any application and protect it with a password. Here’s how to use the App Lock.
App Lock Process
- Access the Google Android marketplace application from within your phone’s application menu or from the home screen where the market icon is.
- Once the Android Market application opens up, try locating the application under the utility tab. You can also use the search widget of the application to search the App Lock application located on the upper right-hand side of the screen.
- Alternatively, use this link to locate the application and install it. This is a free-to-use application and has been tried as well but from a security point of view, make sure to read the permissions asked by any application.
- Upon installation, start the application or run it. Alternatively, you can exit the Android Market application and run the application from the main applications menu.
- The application will open up to the main splash screen that showcases the password grid. Choose your password for the app; remember this password to use to access the locked application. So make sure to choose a powerful yet memorable password. Once done, proceed further and renter the password.
- The following screen will prompt you for security questions and answers; just in case you forget your password, this will help you regain access to the locked application. Make sure you enter something personal but not publically available such as birth date or pet name. Once done, proceed further.
- The following splash screen will show all the applications on the device. From here, you can choose which application to lock and which one to leave open for usage. We chose messaging and phone apps.
- Now exit the application and try accessing the dialer or phone application. Every time you will try accessing the app, it will prompt you for the password. Enter your password and enjoy as regular. You can try this with all applications as per need.
Locking Apps on Android
Android does let third-party apps control access to other apps, so you can install one of these app lockers and block access to any apps you don’t want other people snooping around inside.
There are a whole host of these apps available on Android, as a quick search on the Google Play Store will confirm. However, bearing in mind that these apps need some pretty deep access to your phone and your apps—because that’s what they need to function—it’s important to only consider ones that you completely trust.
Once you have Norton App Lock installed, it couldn’t be easier to use: You just tap the apps that you want to protect with your passcode or pattern, and that’s it. There’s also the option to turn Norton App Lock in its entirety on or off as needed.
Some individual apps have also taken it upon themselves to put extra protections in place too. One of these, as on iOS, is Dropbox—if you go to Settings from the main app menu, you can select Configure Passcode to do exactly that.
