Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder

The deeply integrated Carrier IQ software on mobile devices has made the rounds lately. Check out this introductory post for detailed information about Carrier IQ. The technology has recently been discovered on Android and Apple smartphones in a way that the discoverer called rootkit-like. Users have a hard time finding out if Carrier IQ is running on their phone, and virtually no possibility of finding out which data it collects or transfers. To top it all off, there is no native option to disable Carrier IQ from running on the phone.

If you are like me, you’d probably want to know if a program that can virtually access all data on the phone is running on it and with which server and companies it communicates.

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder is a new program for Android mobile phones by Bitdefender that can be used to find out if the technology is running on a phone.

Android users need to download the application from Android Market where it is available for free. The app has been designed to detect Carrier IQ on Android phones. It cannot remove the technology nor detect or remove malicious software from the phone.

Android users can point their browsers to the Bitdefender carrier IQ Finder market place listing to install the program directly from there. It is necessary to be logged in a Google account to install the app.

The app will search for traces of Carrier IQ on the phone on start up.

A red screen after the scan indicates that Carrier IQ has been found running on the system, a green screen that the technology has not been found on the smartphone.

What can you do if Carrier IQ has been found on your phone? It may be virtually impossible to remove the technology completely from the phone. You could contact your carrier for additional information about the technology. (via)

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: android, android apps, bitdefender

BlueStacks, Android Apps On Windows Now Compatible With XP, Vista

With so many new and exciting apps coming out for mobile operating systems like Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, it only is natural that some users want those apps to work on their desktop PCs as well. Maybe they want to utilize the bigger screen of their computer system, show off an app or device, or have access to an app even when their mobile phone is not in reach or accessible.

BlueStacks offers a solution for Windows based computer systems. It was first only compatible with Windows 7, the latest version released a few days ago added support for XP and Vista as well.

When you install BlueStacks on your computer an icon is added to the upper right screen of the operating system. This icon acts as the central hub. Here you can start Android applications, open the help file or the BlueStacks website to load additional apps on the computer.

The free version ships with ten preinstalled apps. It offers room for additional apps (The (changing) start page states the free version is limited to 26 additional apps) that can be installed from a list of featured apps on the BlueStacks homepage or by installing a BlueStacks client on the Android mobile which can then be used to push Android apps directly to the Windows PC. These apps appear in the hub listing after a short period of time.

Available preinstalled are mostly game apps like Aporkalypse or Drag Racing. The featured apps section on the BlueStacks homepage, only accessible after connecting a Facebook account with the service, lists more games and some news related apps.

More interesting that the featured or preinstalled apps is the ability to push existing Android apps from your phone to your PC to access them on Windows. The developers say that not all apps may work at the current point in time.

Apps that work are launched in fullscreen. Take a look at the following videos to get a better expression.

The developers are continuing to work on the application. It will eventually reach beta and then final status. The plan of the company from what I can see is to keep offering the free version of the software with limited app storage space, and a professional version with unlimited space that is likely going to cost either a flat sum of money or a subscription fee.

Windows users can download the latest version of BlueStacks from the project website. Windows XP users should take a look at the prerequisite page before they install the software to make sure they have all the software installed on their system that is required to run BlueStacks.

Android users, have you tried the BlueStacks App Player yet? If so, what’s your opinion?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: android, android application, android apps, google android, google android applications, windows software