Nowadays data breaches happen more and more often, so securing valuable information on your phone, especially online, is something everyone should care about. Hackers develop their skills every day, and new software appears constantly in hopes of keeping them away. Check out these applications, which can secure information on your mobile gadget.
1. Encrypted messengers
Nobody wants to have complete strangers listen to their conversations. To be safe from these eavesdroppers, you can install different free messaging apps on your Android and iOS phone. They employ strong encryption protocols. These will encode all of your messages, so even if someone intercepts any of them, they will not be able to read them.
You can try Signal for example. This free messaging app does all the aforementioned things. It supports voice and video calls, group chats, GIFs, and emojis. The app keeps encryption on constantly, and if you really want to leave no trace of a conversation, the app can remove the sent messages from the recipient’s phone.
Feel free to try WhatsApp, which is also free for Android and iOS. It offers integrated encryption, which is always on, similar to Signal. Many users prefer it to Signal, but it is not as secure.
2. VPN for iOS (or Android)
All right, so now your messages are encrypted. But what about the rest of your data? An app that grants you a Virtual Private Network, or a VPN, encrypts all of the data that your phone beams into the online world. Therefore, it is much harder for anyone, whether it is the Internet Service Provider, government agencies, or individual hackers, to access your data.
It is great when a VPN for iOS or Android is free, but they are much slower than those you have to pay for. However, Opera VPN for Android and iOS is an awesome exception. It is simple to set up and operate, and it blocks ads from tracking your actions online. It does all of this by faking your actual location, so you appear to be in different parts of the world. Free VPNs like Opera collect information about how you use your phone though. They earn money to stay alive by studying anonymous data in order to pick out trends or sell it to other companies.
3. Password Managers
Passwords are the first line of defense for most of your accounts. To achieve maximum security, it is smart to have a different one for every platform. It can, therefore, be hard to memorize them all. That is where password manager apps come into play.
These apps store all of your account information under one secure username and password. This way you can protect various accounts with only one password. It can even generate strong and random passwords for each account you have. Keep in mind that you are entrusting one service with all of your valuable and vulnerable information. Therefore, make sure to pick the right one. Feel free to go with LastPass or Dashlane. Both of them have impeccable reviews online.