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Consumer Products => Avast Mobile Apps => Avast Anti-Theft for Android => Topic started by: Trooper on January 03, 2013, 07:35:39 PM

Title: Avast Location and Anti Theft
Post by: Trooper on January 03, 2013, 07:35:39 PM
Hi,

Just installed AMS on my Nexus 4. Used to run it on my Galaxy Nexus.  Nice to see that some things have improved since then.  I'd like to ask a few questions however.

The antitheft APP seems to be chewing up some battery life and wake lock cycles.  Is this normal?

I see on your website that it states that Google stopped the ability to activate GPS on Android remotely after gingerbread.  However, other Android AV's are able to do this.  Can Avast look into this?  Reason I ask is because I feel that your locate ability is not as accurate as other products.  Also the web interface could use some sprucing up with the maps and alerts siren interface.

I realize its a free product and this is not a knock on you guys.  Heck, I would pay for for improvements.

Would appreciate some comments and discussion.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Avast Location and Anti Theft
Post by: Filip Havlicek on January 03, 2013, 09:56:21 PM
Hi,

I don't usually reply to Anti-Theft posts, but I'm going to make an exception since your post is so nice :)

I'm just going to talk about that issue with activating GPS. I have read a lot of such questions and usually I'm not sure if users understand us correctly and we correctly understand users :) There are two things we can do with GPS on certain devices. We can enabled/activate it and we can turn it on.

Enabling/activating GPS means changing the state of the GPS checkbox/slider in device Settings. If the GPS is enabled/activated, it is not turned on automatically (you don't immediately see the GPS icon in the notification bar). The GPS is turned on when an application requests the respective location and only if the checkbox is set to enabled state.

Now on certain devices (rooted or Gingerbread or lower) we can do both those things. On other devices, we can only turn on the GPS, but we can't enable it. If you know about any applications that can enable GPS on such devices, please, let us know and we will take a look at them.

Filip
Title: Re: Avast Location and Anti Theft
Post by: Tobias56 on January 10, 2013, 01:45:09 PM
About the battery issue as far as I know Antitheft doesn't run unless there is a reason for it (you asked it or there was a sim change).
Title: Re: Avast Location and Anti Theft
Post by: Trooper on January 29, 2013, 06:27:51 PM
Hi,

Sorry for the delayed response.

As far as GPS goes, I can tell you that there are two other AV/Anti-Theft products that do indeed activate/turn on GPS when it is off.  If you want to know which ones I can PM you.  Don't want to start a war here with one product against another.

I hope that you do improve this in the next version of Avast for mobile as I would like to run this on my device, but since tracking/locating is not as accurate as some other companies, I am currently using another product.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Avast Location and Anti Theft
Post by: reinhardholzner on February 05, 2013, 02:23:53 PM
i do not believe other products can do it (except they found some security hole in android). can you email me info to holzner @ avast.com?