BullGuard Mobile Security Review

Review summary

Good points

Bad points

Our verdict

BullGuard Mobile Security does what you need a good mobile security program to do – the software comes with anti-theft features, anti-virus measures and good quality parental control systems.

Full review

With viruses and malware on the attack and your phone potentially vulnerable to threats from both malignant technology and thieves, you’d better set up protection. We looked closely at the BullGuard Mobile Security features to see if this software system can effectively protect your mobile phone.

Setup

BullGuard supports a wide whole range of popular operating systems, including Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson phones but it won’t work on an iPhone.

Set-up is simple and once you’ve paid for the security system you download it to your phone from the BullGuard website, either straight to the phone or through a computer. Once you’ve set up the system on the phone you don’t need to remember to turn it on – the security features work in the background as you use your phone.

Anti-theft

With BullGuard you get a web-based interface that gives you access to your mobile should you lose it or have it stolen. With this remote access you can lock your phone, wipe off all the data on your phone, protect your SIM card and backup your mobile files onto your PC. The complete package - and all pretty easy to use.

The lock function prevents anyone from accessing your contacts but if you need greater assurance you can use the wipe function to get rid of all the data on your mobile and the memory card - you have it all backed up on the PC so there's no reason not to use this method if your phone has been stolen.

You can also track down a lost phone by using the GPS locater function, or send an alarm to the phone to locate it if you’ve forgotten which pocket you left it in. However, a few complaints have been made on the web relating to the GPS service and how it doesn’t always work when you want it to.

If you lose your phone you can make use of the backup features from BullGuard, which save your contact numbers and details and your calendar (but not, for now, your messages) and restore them to a new phone when you get it.

Malware protection

Anti-virus & spyware protection - BullGuard offers all you need to help keep your phone free of viruses and other malicious programs, and you can customize the settings to carry out as many or as few scans as you want. The mobile anti-virus mechanism works in real-time to detect and remove viruses and spyware whether they are delivered by SMS, email, download or other methods. The anti-virus scan looks over the whole phone as an automatic response, or you can select folders or files to scan.

Anti-spam - A spam filter gives you extra protection from annoying and potentially damaging unwanted texts.

Firewall - The firewall hides your phone from hackers and general attacks on the security of your phone on the move. You should bear in mind that the firewall feature and the spam protection are available on mobiles using Windows Mobile or Symbian operating systems only.

Parental controls

The parental control features on BullGuard are particularly stringent. You have access to a web interface from where you can monitor your child’s text messages, photos, calls, contacts and apps that they send and receive. You can prevent your child from looking at pornography on the internet via their mobile phone, and from downloading expensive and possibly damaging apps. The parental controls are some of the most robust in mobile security, and they are all operated from your area on the BullGuard website.

Updates

If you have continuous access to the internet you don’t need to worry about updates because they are sent through to your phone via a wireless connection. If you don’t always have internet connection and you want to check your protection is up to date, you can do so on the BullGuard website.

Ease of use

The BullGuard Mobile Security web interface is simple to navigate and to use, and we don’t think you’ll have many problems operating the functions. All the features are well set out and easy to understand. If you need step-by-step instructions you can find them in the online support sections but even the virus scanning process is easier to understand here than on some other mobile security software packages.

Help & support

The BullGuard support system is much more accessible than Kaspersky's. You can choose from live chat support, 24-7, or email response. There’s a whole host of online articles and FAQs, and a forum (some of the advice and responses can get rather technical). Many step-by-step instructions help you through setting up the phone security package’s functions and there are manuals available for in-depth advice. However, there's no phone support available.

Overall

The BullGuard Mobile Security package is easy to use, intuitive and highly useful for protecting your mobile phone and all the data you have stored on it.

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Overall
Setup
Anti-theft
Malware protection
Parental controls
Updates
Ease of use
Help & support