Today, more than at any other time before, smartphones are your life. According to a recent study carried out by a leading antivirus company, the average consumer stores over $30,000 assets in digital form. And since you are more likely to lose your smartphone than you are your PC, it helps a lot to go beyond the comfort zone and take steps to secure your Android smartphone. Luckily for you, you don’t need a video training guide to learn how to secure your Android phone; here are a few easy steps that you can get started on right away:o   Android’s default security – Android and Google by extension, knows that your security is important. As thus, they provide quite a variety of security mechanisms that you can effectively use to attain some level of safety and privacy on your device. These mechanisms include the screen lock (password, pattern, pin and face unlock) as well as encryption features. By persistently using this to make sure crackers can’t go past your home screen, you go a long way towards safeguarding your own privacy and data security.o   Maintain secure downloads – although your friends have been telling you about this cool app they downloaded from a third-party Android app store, you might want to keep off. Maintaining secure downloads from the official Google play store will go a long way to secure your Android smartphone. Google proactively scans apps and frisks the play store to ensure that the wares contained within its inventory are safe for your device. On the other hand, third party stores cannot always guarantee the same.o   Lock your Apps – most probably than not, your smartphone apps have a lot of personal and private data. This is information you wouldn’t want anyone else to get hold of. Well, an additional layer of security will go a long way towards keeping your device safe. Download a suitable App Lock application from the Google play store and make it one-password-harder to access individual apps on your device.o   Scrutinize app permissions – before you jump right ahead and download the latest app in stock, you might want to hold your horns. A lot of these apps are always asking for permission to do stuff on your device, and you’re always consenting – like a generous, spoilt kid! Well, before you hit ‘accept’, give some thought into the kind of permissions each app is asking for. For instance, the scheduler app does not need to access your Dialer, just like the alarm app doesn’t need to access your gallery. In this regard, scrutinizing app permissions will be an instrumental activity if you are looking to secure your Android smartphone.o   Secure your networks – regarding networks, nobody can dictate what to use and what to avoid. But either way, Wi-Fi networks that fit the profile of ‘free, public, and unsecured’ should be avoided. Such networks are likely to be hot-spots of insecurity, including illegal hacking activities, spoofing and spying. An idle kid a few blocks away can just as well sniff out your network packets and get hold of that credit card number you’ve been trying so hard to keep private. Be informed!

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What's my model number?

There are several ways to locate your model number:

Option 1
On your device, go to Settings, then "About device" and scroll down to "Model number"
Option 2
Often times you can view the model number inside the device, by removing the battery
Option 3
Using Samsung's model/serial number location tool

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