How to track a lost or stolen phone via the Internet? We advise

Phones are devices that are relatively easy to lose. We wear them almost all the time, some even take them to the bathroom. It is very easy to lose them, e.g. by staring.

People wandering into dark alleys of the city or often staying in crowds may, in turn, fall prey to thieves or pickpockets. However, not all is lost. There are several legal ways to track its location.

Android and Find My Device

Google has equipped Android with a location feature. However, it is not limited to showing the phone on the map. The manufacturer allowed, among others:

Just go to this page and choose the appropriate device. The function works not only on pure Android & hairsp; - & hairsp; I tested it on MIUI 11.

Below you can see a screenshot of the browser showing the location of my phone. The map shows your current location and also allows you to view the IMEI number.

I had my GPS turned off, and yet the map quite accurately estimated the location of & hairsp; - & hairsp; the margin of error is about 150 m. But what does it give us?

Thanks to this, we know in which area to look for a lost / stolen smartphone. Besides, we can turn on the bell and try to find it by sound. Needless to say, it helps a lot in finding the equipment.

A little curiosity & hairsp; - & hairsp; after locating the phone, the system displays a notification. This may scare a possible thief (he would rather not want to be followed). However, I wonder if it would not be better if Android was more discreet in this matter. Better for the intruder to be dormant.

You can find your iPhone using iCloud

iPhones do not goosebumps, but they have their location. It takes place via the iCloud cloud.

Let's just remember that the Find My iPhone function should be turned on on the iPhone - otherwise all we can do is secure the phone by changing the passwords for Apple ID accounts and other accounts on the device.

We go to this page, enter the account details and we can find the missing iPhone. As with Google's Find My Phone, the location was quickly estimated.

There is also a second way to find a & hairsp; - & hairsp; phone via the Locator program, which displays a map on another device with the location of each iOS device.

It is built into iOS 13. If you have an older version of the system, you need to update it.

... an antivirus can help you in your search

Not everyone knows about it, but a lot of mobile antiviruses have been equipped with the localization function. They are not as popular software among users as eg Google Maps, but there are people who use them.

One of the programs of this type that allows you to find and control a missing phone is Avast and I will deal with it in this study. For the location and anti-theft features to work, you need to pair with your device or activate the Anti-Theft feature in the application.

If we meet the above conditions, then after entering the Avast account page, select the device and then the specific action.

Avast allows you to locating a phone, starting a sound signal or blocked devices. In addition, it allows you to record a signal from a microphone or take a photo.

They are useful to identify the thief or possibly the location of the phone & hairsp; - & hairsp; if the phone, for example, has fallen in a gallery and lies somewhere in a store we know, we can identify where.

We cannot forget about the option of wiping data from the phone if it has fallen into the hands of an intruder and we want to be sure that it will not take our confidential information out of it.

Watch out for bogus sites

After typing in Google the phrase "locating the phone", a lot of pages will pop up to help us in this. The problem is that most of them are fake and are used to trick us into paid SMS. And it's not cheap & hairsp; - & hairsp; in the regulations of one of the parties I found a provision that the cost of such a message is PLN 25.

Some can be really perfidious. One of them displayed photos of people who had allegedly used the & hairsp; - & hairsp; locator to create an appearance of reliability. After looking, it turned out that it was displaying ... my Facebook friends. I'm pretty sure none of them took advantage of it. So be on your guard.

Hope none of you had to use such services. However, if you have tried them, let me know in the comments how useful they were.