10 power hungry Android apps which needs to be avoided

Android gadgets like smartphones and tablet PC’s have become very popular worldwide. Android users can download variety of apps available from Google play store.
According to the analysis made in September 2012 the number of apps downloaded by the android users from the Play store market was 25 billion. Some of the apps use very minimal amount of the battery power whereas some of the other apps seems to be just developed to consume the power. Problem with most of the free android apps is the display of ads on the device. To display these ads the app uses the device to communicate with its server which leads to the consumption of power in the background.

If you want to explore various android apps on your device and at the same time want to keep a tab on your battery power then stay away from few android apps listed below.
The researchers have analyzed the 100 most popular Android applications and have come out with the list of 10 android apps that not only consumes much of the battery life but surprisingly they tend to extract the personal information of its user too.

The list includes:
1. Angry Birds: The most popular game liked by almost all the android users.
2. Toss it game: The most addictive casual game available in google play store.
3. Talking Tom virtual pet: A fun application where a cute little cat or the virtual pet repeats whatever you say.
4. Backgrounds HD Wallpapers: One of the best wallpaper app.
5. Dictionary.com: Top rated android dictionary app
6. Mouse Trap game: A very additive puzzle game
7. Horoscope: The most popular horoscope application on Android to see into your future.
8. Shazam music: The must have music identification app for android.
9. Brightest Flashlight: Turns on all available lights on the device.
10. Pandora Internet Radio: A free and personalized radio.

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Tips to safeguard a smartphone

These days one not only uses the smartphones for just calling purpose or playing games but also for making the bank transactions and other official purpose like preparing confidential presentation or word documents.
In such situation just imagine that you have stored all your confidential and personal data on your smartphone and on one bad day the phone gets stolen or a virus like “Zeus Trojan” has attacked your mobile phone and all your bank passwords are stolen and your account is robbed right in front of you or imagine you getting an unexpected huge phone bill or your smartphone’s system software gets corrupted and you can no longer use it. Yes all this is possible in today’s world if one doesn’t take the precautions to prevent it.
Today’s app are so intelligent that they access your personal data, get synchronized with them or upload the photos on your social networking sites without your notice and do a lot other stuffs which normally we don’t expect. In such case it is not difficult to develop an app which enters your phone and sends all the vital information to its Developers or Hackers as popularly called. This article explains briefly about the tips to secure the smartphone from Malwares and Virus and also it explains about the precautions one should take to protect the vital information from being stolen.

Tips to safeguard the smartphone from Virus/Malware attacks:
– First and foremost download a security app or anti virus app. Basic tip for safeguarding the phone from the virus. A security app recommends whether the app which you are downloading is safe or not. Keep this security app up to date so that it is inline with the latest threat. There are many free mobile anti virus apps available in the app market for all the operating systems.

– Do not download the apps from untrusted sources. For iPhones and Windows Phone devices one has to always use the Market place to download the apps as they are trusted and free from malwares. But since Android is an open source and free for all so anybody can develop any kind of apps. So for android phones even the market place is not a safe place to download the apps. But one can take few steps before downloading the apps like tip 1 (mentioned above), read the reviews of the app, research what all other apps have the developers developed are they legitimate, do not allow apps to access your phone book or other contact details. Remember you can live without the app but you cant risk your smartphone being damaged.
– Never click any links sent via text messages or emails from unknown sources as they may lead to the installation of some bad apps which downloads only paid apps from the market place and increases your phone bill like hell.

Precautions to protect your confidential information from being stolen:
– Protect the phone from a pin/pattern/face lock. Yes your few seconds will be wasted every time you access your phone but this is one of the most basic and powerful protection one can give to their smartphone.
For android mobile phones one can find it at Settings -> Security -> Screen lock.
For Windows Phones at Settings -> Lock + Wallpaper.
For iPhones at Settings -> General -> Passcode lock
– Write down the IMEI number on a paper and keep it in your wallet always. Whenever your phone gets stolen just report to nearest police with this IMEI number so that they can block from getting used by any operator.
– Do not keep Bluetooth On when not in use as it may invite the hackers.
– Accessing the free WiFi networks in public is not a good idea. Such networks are unsecured and highly vulnerable for information theft. For instance if you open your facebook account or bank account on such wifi networks then the user credentials are transmitted in an unsecured or unprotected way. Cyber Criminals can easily decode your passwords from their spywares and you can imagine what can happen after this. Any antivirus or security apps wont help in such case. So one has to use the VPN while accessing the public wifi hotspots as the passwords will be secured and encrypted before they are transmitted.

Lastly, one has to be Smart enough to protect his/her Smartphone from unwanted Smart apps. So follow the above tips and many other which aren’t mentioned here to be safe.

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Best app to download YouTube videos on Windows Phone 8

Currently there is no official YouTube app developed by Google yet for Windows Phone Os and neither it has any plan to do so atleast in the near future, so in such case many third party software companies have developed their own YouTube players for the Microsoft’s mobile operating system for playing and downloading the YouTube videos.
METROTube is one such beautiful WP app using which one can access the YouTube videos on their Windows Phone 8 smartphone. This app is available for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices.

MetroTube is very simple to use and one of the most popular and demanded app in Windows Phone community. To download the YouTube videos one has to just search the video they want and then click on the “preload” button which starts the downloading process.
Metro Tube is a very neatly designed app and at the same time it has many powerful features just like the official YouTube app has.

Features of MetroTube Version 4.0 are:
– Double sided Live tiles for notifications
– Listen to the Audio even when the Phone is locked
– Pre-Load the videos in different formats like HD, HQ, LQ to watch them watch them offline
– Pin your favorite preloaded video in WP8′s three different tile size
– Easy to use
– Manage the playlist
– Comment, rate, subscribe the Videos
– Share the videos on social networks
– Tiles automatically adapt to the phone theme
Currently the app is not free, it is available for $0.99 on the link mentioned below in this post. In all ways the app is value for money so just go for it.

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Fed up of Spam SMS or Calls? India Against Spam is the solution

I registered my phone number to “Do Not Disturb” but this service only stops the unwanted spam calls from the telemarketing guys and not there sms’s. Even till today I get the spam messages mostly from the Real estate or insurance guys. To get rid of these I searched and found an interesting android app for my HTC One X.
India Against Spam is an Android app which reports the spam sms/calls which is also termed as Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) to the concerned authority. This app is freely available on the Google Play store.
Whenever a spam sms/call has disturbed you all you need to do is just open this app and it automatically filters the spam numbers from others and then you need to select the spam sms/call from the list and send it. The message will be sent to the TRAI’s toll free number 1909 and a complaint will be registered against the spammers. There after you will be free from spam messages or calls. The app is very simple to use and is less than 1MB in size.

If you don’t need this app and wish to block the spammers then you need to follow the TRAI’s facitlity to lodge the complaint which is little complicated. You have to send an SMS to 1909 in the following format “COMP TEL NO XXXXXXXXXX; dd/mm/yy; Time in hh:mm; short description of Unsolicited Commercial Communication” where XXXXXXXXXX is the phone number or header of the SMS, from which the unsolicited commercial communication originated, for each such unsolicited communication. If you install the app then the above mentioned complex job will be taken care by the app itself.
This app also allows one to register or deregister there number to Do Not Disturb service. You can download the app from here or just type “India Against Spam” in the google play store and download.

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How to use Mp3 Cutter on Android Smartphone?

Do you just love a part in the whole song? Want to use the best part in the music as your ringtone? Or want to cut the unwanted part from the song? Then here is a wonderful android software application called as Mp3 Cutter which fulfills your needs and that too for free.

Mp3 Cutter from beka is one of the top free android apps which cuts any part in the song based on your wish and stores it into the phone’s memory. It works on the Smartphones, Tablets running on android version 2.0.1 and up. The app is quite stable and easy to use. This app supports .mp3 files only.

To download Mp3 Cutter, open the Google PlayStore and type “Mp3 Cutter beka”. Select the app and install it, the size of the app is just 745KB. Before using this app I recommended you to install the File Manager app. Because the Mp3 Cutter stores the edited part of the song in the “/media/audio/” location of the phone memory which can be accessed easily using the file manager software.

Steps to cut the song using Mp3 Cutter:
– Open the Mp3 Cutter App, click on the green button placed on top.
– Browse and select the song from your phone. The song gets loaded in the app.
– Now the app just looks like a player app with some extra buttons. Extra buttons includes a red button and two sets of ‘<>‘ buttons. The first set is used to trim the start point and the second set is used for trimming the end point of the edited song. More explanation on this in next step. The red button is the trigger/halt to cut the song.
– Click the play button to play the song. And when your best part starts playing just click the red button which starts to cut the song. Clicking the red button again will stop the cutting of the song.
– Clicking the Reset Cut button aborts the cut part and starts again for fresh edit, Play Cut plays the edited part of the song and Start cut saves the edited song.
– If you find that the edited song misses some part of your favorite music then this is where the two sets of ‘<>‘ arrow buttons are used to trim the edited part.
– Open the desired location (“/media/audio/”) in the file manager to find the song which can be copied/moved to another location in the memory and can be used as a ringtone, can be shared or deleted etc.

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