An easy to use, intuitive app for tuning up Android devices

Mar 28, 2013 21:22 GMT  ·  By

The number of threats on the smartphone market has increased significantly lately, especially on Google’s Android OS, which is currently the leading mobile platform out there, and thus the main target for malware, adware and other forms of attacks.

Coming from IObit Mobile Security, Advanced Mobile Care offers an all-in-one tool for keeping Android smartphones and tablet PCs clean and secure at all times, courtesy of features such as real-time protection, app manager, task killer, and more.

Said to be a veritable Swiss army knife for Androids, the mobile application delivers the full range of security capabilities that any mobile users would like to have on their handset, and also packs useful tools that can boost the performance of any device.

In addition to already available features such as App Manager, Battery Saver, Cloud Backup, Game Speeder, Task Killer, and Privacy Advisor, the recently released Advanced Mobile Care 3.0 comes with new capabilities inside, such as Anti-theft and Call Blocker.

Furthermore, it was released with a series of other enhancements as well, such as improvements to the Battery Saver, support for tablet PCs such as Nexus 7, Nexus 10, Galaxy Note, Asus Transformer and others, and support for more languages, including Greek, Korean, Portuguese and Serbian.

Running on all devices powered by Android 2.2 and newer, the app proves to be very easy to use, intuitive, and packed with various customization options for some of the features it was built with.

For starters, there’s the Mobile Anti-virus that Advanced Mobile Care comes with, offering users the possibility to scan their devices for possible threats, while also being capable of cleaning them up, should this be necessary.

The scan, which covers both the device’s internal memory and the external memory card, runs pretty fast, though it certainly depends on the amount of files it has to checkt to find viruses, malware, spyware, and suspicious apps. You can also stop the scan at any time, in case you change your mind.

However, provided that the phone or tablet is clean, users can also enable the included real-time protection, which will kick in when a new application or an unknown file is being downloaded.

Should a user want to perform some more cleaning on the device, Advanced Mobile Care 3.0 will be there to help, showing all running tasks, the amount of cache, and how many junk files can be wiped.

A simple scan will show all of these, and the mobile software will also provide the option to repair the device, thus removing found malware, killing selected tasks and deleting junk files and cache should the user opt in for that.

Through cleaning the phone's or tablet's memory, cache and junk files, users also ensure that the performance speed of their device is improved.

With the Game Speeder option, Advanced Mobile Care can tune up the system to deliver faster performance when running a game, and also ensures that users can enjoy their gameplay without interruptions.

If high performance is not what you are looking for but longer battery life instead, this mobile application has got you covered as well.

Its Battery Saver mode can be customized to close specific tasks, turn off connectivity options, adjust the brightness of the screen and the like, so as to ensure that the device eats less battery and can stay on longer.

Unfortunately, the new release no longer offers multiple battery saving modes as it did before, and users will have to adjust each preference manually when needed (or they can simply switch the Battery Saver on or off).

Furthermore, it offers info on which applications are most power-hungry, and also offers an estimated battery remaining time, so that users could plan ahead on when to recharge.

To me, these estimations appear to be made based on the most recent usage level, and they do not include the periods of time when the device is idle.

For example, although at one time it showed about 13 hours remaining time when the battery was 70 percent charged, an estimated 9 hours were left around 22 hours later (with the phone left in standby for about 14 hours in this timeframe).

The app itself does not seem to eat a lot of battery, though performing several consecutive scans of the device did start to show an increase in phone resources and in battery drain.

The best part of the deal is that you can set for the app to show a battery icon in the notification area at all times, so that you know precisely the amount of juice left (or you can have the Advanced Mobile Care logo displayed there).

Not to mention that a very useful widget can be placed on the homescreen to easily turn the Battery Saver on or off and to access the usage statistics with only a few taps.

The widget also enables users to perform system scans with only one tap, while also offering quick access to system information, so that one would know how much of the device's resources are being used, and how many tasks are running.

The widget also offers fast access to the App Manager, another handy feature included in this mobile software, designed to offer quick info on all applications that are installed on the device.

But there's more to it, as the App Manager can also be used to easily launch or uninstall applications (and can even perform this action on multiple apps at the same time), or to delete unnecessary APK files from the smartphone or slate.

The app management capabilities of Advanced Mobile Care also include the option to move applications to an SD card, a feature that could prove handy when there's little room left on the phone's internal memory.

While tweaking the performance and battery life of the device are appealing features of the software, the privacy protection capabilities it has been packed with can attract users even more.

First of all, there is the Privacy Advisor feature that delivers specific details on all the personal information that applications installed on the device can access.

It will show you whether specific applications and games can access your personal data, contacts, text messages, device storage, location and the like, and allows you to uninstall them, provided that you are not happy with their behavior.

What the software won't show in Privacy Advisor (nor would it in App Manager and battery statistics) is info on itself, though users will be able to access these details – the same as on any other app on their device – through going to the Apps section in the Settings menu.

Then, there's the Privacy Locker, which enables users to hide, lock and protect various files on their device, including documents, photos, videos and the like, so as to ensure that they won't be accessible to third parties in the event that your device falls into the wrong hands.

The feature can be accessed straight from the app's main window, and requires setting a password upon the first use. As soon as it has been set, simply select the files you would like to be protected, and they won't be showed on the device anymore, unless you unlock them.

One thing that you need to keep in mind is that it won't preview files that have been locked, which means that, if you want to unlock a specific one, you'll have to know it by name (this might prove a bit difficult when it comes to photos, especially if they are in large numbers).

Another privacy protection feature included in Advanced Mobile Care is Call Blocker, which keeps you away from unwanted calls. Users can choose either to add these calls to a blacklist manually, or to have all calls coming from non-contacts blocked.

Anti-theft is another useful capability that the software comes with, ensuring an extra level of protection for a device that has been lost or stolen.

The same as Privacy Locker, the Anti-theft function in Advanced Mobile Care can be turned on by setting up a password first (which can be changed in the Preference menu later on). Next, you can choose to perform specific actions on a lost phone, such as alarm, lock, or get the location.

Simply head to the Find lost phone option in the Anti-theft menu, and you're good to go, but keep in mind that the feature will work only if Advanced Mobile Care has already been installed on the lost device, and if the Anti-theft functionality has been enabled.

As in previous flavors, version 3.0 of the application comes with a Cloud Backup & Restore feature, so that users can easily back up contacts and call logs from a device and restore them after a system wipe or when switching handsets.

The option should come in handy to those who often switch between an Android device and another one, though it can save only contacts and call logs at the moment, and support for backing up additional settings would certainly prove a nice addition to it.

The software also offers support for multiple languages, can launch at device startup, and can be set to automatically update its virus database – though users can also manually check for updates.

Overall, Advanced Mobile Care can easily prove a great system tuneup software to install on your Android device, especially since it offers an intuitive interface that would allow even inexperienced users to set it up and running in no time.

Experienced users, however, will notice that the app is quite invasive, which does not come as a surprise, in fact, given its purpose and the type of data it needs to access and process.

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