Mobile app not hiding

[Dustoff]

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.

[Filip Havlicek]

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

[Robnw]

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.

[Lisandro]

Make everything configurable

[SafeSurf]

Make everything configurable

Agree +1

[jimnewl]

Tie up the guys in Marketing and change the name to Avast Mobile Antivirus 

That, it seems to me, would be the preferred solution from a security standpoint, as it wouldn't alert thieves to the app's anti-theft capabilities. Unfortunately, to be really thorough and effective, the software's "anonymity" would need to be protected not only after the app is installed on the phone, but also before that, when it's posted for download in the Market(s). After all, it seems silly and self-defeating to expose an anti-theft security product to detection by every two-bit phone thief in existence, whose first act either prior to the theft or after it is likely to be to perform a search of the Marketplace for every app associated with the keywords "security," "anti-theft," "lockout," etc.

But assuming that that strategy is too extreme to be acceptable, the second-best solution would be to keep the name "Avast Mobile Security" while the app is vying for downloads in the Marketplace, and then change it to "Avast Mobile Antivirus" (or whatever) once it's installed and the anti-theft function is invoked. This would at least serve to protect it against the more inept, casual, and/or careless thieves, who might be unfamiliar with the product and more or less oblivious to the possibility that a stealth app might be guarding this phone they just lifted.

[DavidR]

Whatever name you call it what is to stop the thief from using google, etc. to find out what it is.

Everyone is talking about the thief not being dumb (not just an opportunist thief), well if he isn't dumb what is to stop them from using the internet to find out what it is and or how to remove it, pretty much nothing.

As is constantly said nothing is 100% and the general idea is to give you a little time to lock the phone and locate it, etc. etc.

[erymanthus]

I was similarly perplexed about this issue.

I was given the impression that ONCE I activate Anti-theft and restart the phone, the Avast Mobile Security app/icon will hide itself. That means you no longer see it in the Notification Bar and in the Apps List......however, in my case the AMS is still very obvious as it appears both in my Notification Bar as well as in the Apps List.

Am I missing anything on the setup?

I'm on a rooted phone. How to make the AMS hides itself ie Stealth Mode?

Thanks for any advice.

[Filip Havlicek]

That works only for the Anti-Theft module, not AMS as a whole.

Filip

[LeighLeigh]

Hi. Completely agree with previous posters that it makes no sense to hide the fake app while leaving the original. Restarted my phone 3 times thinking there was something wrong with the installation before I found this thread.
I actually want to use both the mobile security part AND the anti theft part which is why I downloaded in the first place.
While I can understand that it “makes no sense to hide an antivirus app”, if the user goes ahead and selects the antitheft portion, it should then hide everything. Calling the avast! password could then toggle back to visible. Complaints shouldn't occur if this is spelt out in the instructions.
BTW – love your avast! for PC which is why I downloaded this.

[svehlak]

First of all let us take a look on the AMS as  solution - first of all antivirus part is providing the AV security protection, so this is not very interesting for unathorized person. Now you can install Antitheft from AMS and therefore there must be a button do be able perform such this action. After the Antitheft is installed and configured, app itself will hide and user usualy uses a special name for that. You have to privide a new password for Antitheft to be able ten it on. So finally you invisible app and AMS installed on the device. Now when unathorized person will try to use, first of all this person needs to know password for opening the AMS UI. If the user is not protecting it by password, well, let´s say, not an Avast problem. In case the unauth. person will have an access to AMS UI he can find out, if the AT part is installed or not. That is all - off course you can have an arguments like "there are not very much apps in device manager" or "thief can perform factory reset" and "seeing the AMS icon on will make thief to toss it away", but it does not change nothing on the fact, that unauth. person still needs to know PIN to able access AMS or AT - and in the meantime you can still pimp your device via SMS commands. There should be a way, to hide the item about AntiTheft in AMS UI optionally, but it is not a such priority now.