View The Countries & Organizations Android Apps Send Data To With viaProtect

Following numerous leaks and revelations about NSA’s ‘PRISM’ internet surveillance program and other similar projects by international security firms, it’s become almost unthinkable to browse the web without some form of protection. On Android, there are already numerous ways to check what apps are sending or receiving data from the web, but the new app viaProtect goes a step further. The app – which is still in its preview stages – shows you the countries and services that each app’s internet traffic is going through, along with other security information and an overall security risk rating for your device...

When launched for the first time, the app displays a signup screen where you can either choose to use viaProtect in Guest mode or create a new user account by entering your email address. Signing up will, of course, enable you to sync everything to the cloud, and might offer more features in the future upon the release of the app’s final build.

Past that, viaProtect displays the level of risk to the data on your device based on the amount of encrypted traffic, as well as the regions and organizations that apps are sending data through. The risk indicator at the top is a quick way to know whether you’re on the safe side or not, but you can tap ‘Learn More’ to view pertaining factors, which include the number of invalidated apps that may compromise security and the absence of a lock screen passcode. The security rating has three broad levels, namely ‘Low’, ‘Moderate’ and ‘Severe’.

 

Below that, you’ll see individual sections for viewing reports on the companies and parts of the world your data is being sent to (‘Organization’ and ‘Countries’, respectively) and the percentage amounts of encrypted and unencrypted data, with the ‘last updated’ time mentioned below.

  

You can manually refresh these reports individually from within each section. Lastly, there’s a ‘Sensors’ screen, which simply shows you the sources the app is gathering information from along with the rate at which the info is being gathered from each sensor.

  

viaProtect’s offering is basic but most definitely handy. It could help the privacy-conscious among us put their minds to ease after installing a new app from an unrecognized developer or source.

The app is available for free on the Google Play Store. You can download it to your device from the link provided below.

Install viaProtect from Play Store