McAfee Mobile Security 2013 (for Android)

The $29.99 McAfee Mobile Security 2013 app offers a wide range of security features for Android smartphones and tablets. Versions for Symbian and BlackBerry are also available, with slightly reduced feature sets. As in the previous edition, it includes full-scale antivirus protection and features to help recover a lost or stolen phone. New in this edition, it checks for apps that help themselves to too much of your private data and optionally blocks calls and texts from specific phone numbers.

Antivirus Protection
At any time you can launch a full scan to detect any existing malware on your device. Once it's clean, McAfee works in the background to block any new malware infestations. Like Lookout Mobile Security, Webroot Mobile Security for Android, and others, it also offers website reputation information. Using McAfee's SiteAdvisor database, the app keeps you away from malicious sites, phishing sites, and even malicious QR codes.

An app that isn't actively malicious might still be poking into too much of your private information. The new App Alert feature analyzes all of your apps and ranks them by their level of access to sensitive information. You can get detailed information about just what private data each app can access. App Alert also checks to make sure your apps aren't communicating with unsavory websites. If you think a particular app is just too nosey, you can uninstall it with a click.

Webroot, Lookout, and avast! Free Mobile Security also offer application privacy analysis.

Anti-theft Features
McAfee offers a range of options for dealing with a lost or stolen phone. If you've simply misplaced it, activating the screamer will reveal its location. You can also check its location from McAfee's Web portal. As a precaution, you can lock the phone so anyone finding it can't get at your data. And if you've given up on recovery, you can wipe its data.

A thief might think to avoid detection by swapping in a different SIM card; that thief would be wrong. McAfee automatically locks the phone if the SIM card is removed. Remote lock and wipe can be activated either from the Web portal or by sending a coded SMS message to the phone.

Data Protection
Many mobile security products will back up your contacts. A few will back up your photos, or your calendar. Lookout and Snuko Anti-Theft For Mobiles include call history in their backups. On Android devices, McAfee backs up contacts, photos, and call history. The BlackBerry and Symbian editions also back up the calendar.

Your backed-up data is stored online, associated with your McAfee account. You can restore it to any device, not just the one from which you backed up the data.

Call and SMS Filtering
New in the 2013 edition, McAfee will let you blacklist any phone number. Calls and texts from a blocked number just won't go through. There's also an option to block any caller who's not in your contact list, thereby eliminating spam texts, wrong numbers, and the like.

McAfee Mobile Security 2013 (for Android) is available on Google Play for $29.99.