How to Make Android Faster, More Productive and More Secure Than iPhone

IPhone users love to brag about their phones. They line up around the block and stand in line for hours when a new one is released. Yet, for many users, Android is clearly the superior platform. Yes, its Achilles' heel is a big one: security. Android's openness and large market share mean that it's a juicy target for attackers.

iOS vs. Android in the enterprise

Yet, Android's openness also provides serious benefits. It allows for more customization; its apps are usually cheaper and various handset manufacturers are able to offer significantly different form factors, such as the smartphone-tablet hybrid, the SamsungGalaxy Note.

With a little tweaking, you can speed up and optimize Android in ways that will make iPhone users' heads spin. Here are 10 ways to make Android faster, more productive and more secure than iPhone:

Make your Android faster

1. Get a better browser.

One of the major benefits of using the popular browser Opera Mini is that its cloud engine compresses data by as much as 90%. It features tabbed browsing, support for widgets and the ability to set advanced privacy features, such as the ability to automatically clear passwords, cookies and browsing history.

The advantage for Android users: the ability to use Opera Mobile instead of Opera Mini. Opera Mobile supports Flash and 3D graphics, has an HTML 5 engine and has a device-side web rendering engine for higher fidelity browsing. You can set up the rendering engine to work locally when on a Wi-Fi network and default to the cloud-based rendering engine when on a 3G or 4G network to minimize expensive data usage (if you're not on an all-you-can-eat data plan). It also allows you to access your camera from your browser. Expect cool new widgets to start using this feature soon.

2. Install an Android optimizer.

Apps like Android Booster and Android Assistant give you the power to automatically kill apps that run in the background, gobbling up battery life and draining CPU. You can set a monthly data limit and monitor exactly how much data you've downloaded over 3G and 4G networks, and you can purge your cache, history, etc.

3. Conserve your battery.

Nothing slows you down more than a dead battery. One advantage Android phones have over iPhones is that you can swap out your battery. But proper power management can save you from that trouble. Apps like JuiceDefender and Battery Stretch help you regulate your power use.

With more than 7 million downloads, JuiceDefender is the most popular of these apps. It offers three different profiles: "Balanced," "Aggressive" or "Extreme."

The Balanced setting is the default and requires no configuration on your part. If you bump it up to "Aggressive," the app will automatically disable data connections when the battery is low. If you're really worried about a dead battery, the "Extreme" setting disables data connections by default. You can turn them back on manually, and you are able to whitelist apps that you want to have connectivity.

Make your Android more productive

4. Dig deeper into which apps hog data.

If you constantly go over your data limits, an app like Android Assistant may not be enough. Sure, you will be alerted when you are nearing your limit, but what exactly is causing the problem?

Is it Facebook, podcasting software, the MLB Gameday app? Who knows?

Well, with Onavo you can find out. The main menu displays statistics on your data use over the prior month, and it fingers the apps hogging the most bandwidth. Many of these are obvious, such as any video or streaming app, but I was surprised to see how much data Google Calendar used with its constant synching, and after consulting with Onavo, I decided to synch less frequently

You'll also discover the apps that go online even when they haven't been launched. Don't be surprised to see that many games do this, so if you haven't played them in a while, you might want to get rid of them. Otherwise, those free Android games may end up costing you money if they push you over your data limit.

For international travelers, Onavo can help you avoid (or limit) costly data roaming charges.

And Onavo is actually an app that has more octane on iPhone, for which it will also compress data. (On Android, this feature is currently limited to Ice Cream Sandwich users.)

5. Tether your phone.

So you've signed up for an expensive all-you-can-eat data plan, yet when you try to tether your laptop to your phone to use that 4G connection you paid a premium for, you are stymied. Carriers will try to charge you $20 or $30 a month for tethering privileges, meaning they're trying to charge you twice for network access that you've really already purchased.

For most people, this is more of a nuisance than anything. Wi-Fi is available everywhere, but if you are using your laptop for business, wouldn't it be smarter to stay on a 4G network rather than connecting to an open Wi-Fi one?

On iPhone, tethering is a no-go. On Android, tethering may technically violate your user license, but you can do it, and you no longer need to root your phone. Apps like Clockworkmod's Tether will have you up and running in a few minutes.

Tether isn't a free app, but at $4.99, one stay in a hotel that still charges for Wi-Fi will make this app a no-brainer.

6. Pick your own keyboard.

Siri has been getting all kinds of press lately, and, sure, it can be amusing to try to get Siri to say off-color things. Yet, when I'm using data on my phone, I prefer text-based input.

For years, one of the main reasons I've considered iPhone inferior is its hostility to apps like Swype. On Android, you have the ability to choose your own keyboard. (Well, iPhone users can jailbreak their phones to get Swype, but that fact reinforces my point.)

Many Android phones come with Swype pre-loaded, but it's not usually the default keyboard. Just press any text entry area for a few seconds and a menu will pop up. Select "Input method" and then choose "Swype." That's it.

I used to avoid texting like the plague because I hated entering data on my phone. That all changed with Swype, which lets you drag your finger across the screen from letter to letter. Its predictive engine figures out what word you are going for (it gets better the more you use it), and you just keep chugging along.

I can't Swype as fast as I type, but I'm a fast typist. Scroll around the Inter-webs a bit, and you'll find plenty of people claiming to achieve 40 or 50 words per minute with Swype. And now that Swype has been acquired by Nuance, you should have even more input options coming your way soon.

Make your phone more secure

7. Turn on screen lock, but don't use a pattern.

The easiest screen unlocking method is to trace a pattern on your screen. It's easier and more convenient than entering a PIN or password. However, if you lose your phone or it is stolen, you better hope you just cleaned your screen.

The oil on your finger will leave a distinct pattern on your screen. Unless you wipe it down religiously after each unlocking, the pattern lock will only deter the stupidest criminals.

8. Install anti-virus software.

Why have you not done this already? Malware writers are flocking to Android. We're seeing much of what happened in the desktop world being repeated with smartphones. Android is more open, has a larger market share and is a juicer target.

IPhone is a closed ecosystem and may eventually, like Mac, benefit from security through obscurity (though I doubt iPhone will ever shrink to Mac-like numbers). For iPhone users, this is good-news, bad-news scenario. Yes, Apple does more to lock down apps and prevent third-party software from exploiting key system resources, but you are trusting one company for your security. If Apple screws up, all iPhone users are in trouble. Exhibit A: the Path privacy fiasco.

Android, on the other hand, may be less secure due to its openness, but it's welcoming to third-party security tools. There's no excuse not to have anti-virus software on your phone. There are plenty of free options, such as Lookout, and with a simple download, you can significantly reduce your risks. Most of these antivirus apps also allow you to remotely lock and wipe your phone if it is lost or stolen, and some even allow you to set off an obnoxious alarm, which will either help you find the device if its tucked behind a couch cushion or convince a thief to toss it.

Of course, we'd like to see handset OEMs and the carriers bake antivirus into their various Android versions. It's a simple step that would benefit them, carriers especially, saving bandwidth, protecting against fraudulent charges and so on. We would also like to see carriers adopt network-based mobile malware scanning, such as the solution from Kindsight Security Labs.

9. Stay away from App Stores you do not know.

Google has taken steps to tame the Wild West that was its Market. It now has a "Bouncer" that scans the Market for malware, and despite what Apple apologists may claim, Android was designed from the get-go to make malware less disruptive on phones than it is on PCs by sandboxing apps and forcing apps to ask for permissions (yes, the same permissions that everyone just ignores, but at least they tried).

The trouble is that Android users can download apps anywhere. Don't be lured into doing this. If you aren't using Android Market, make sure you are in a store you know and trust, such as Amazon. Most Android models come with the default setting that doesn't allow you to download apps from "unknown sources." If you've fallen for social-engineering attacks in the past, it's best to leave that box checked.

When you download an app, try to get into the practice of checking permissions. If a game wants to send out SMS messages, for instance, that should be a red flag.

10. Stay away from mobile payments.

Mobile payments are starting to take off, especially in Europe and Asia, and consumers should be wary. The problem with mobile payments is that they are often simply added to your mobile phone bill, and if you find a suspicious charge, your liability will vary from carrier to carrier.

In contrast, if a hacker gets your credit card number and goes on a spending spree, under federal law, your maximum liability for credit card fraud is $50. In other words, credit card fraud is not your problem, it's the bank's. Until you have that level of protection for mobile payments, it's probably smarter and safer to stick with the credit card.

Thompson Reportedly told Yahoo Board he is Ill

Thompson revealed he has cancer as evidence arose that seemed to contradict his story about his padded resume, according to the Journal.

Scott Thompson told the Yahoo board before he was ousted as CEO over the weekend that he has thyroid cancer, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday

Thompson revealed the diagnosis as evidence arose that seemed to contradict his story about why he was not responsible for a degree listed on his resume that he does not have, the newspaper reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the situation. The cancer diagnosis came while Thompson's academic record was under scrutiny by a Yahoo board committee appointed to investigate the matter. Thompson did not want his illness to be publicly disclosed, a source told the Journal, and he has begun treatment for the disease.

Thompson, who had been under increasing pressure to step down because of the resume situation, decided to resign in part because of the cancer diagnosis, one source told the newspaper. His resume listed an accounting and computer science degree from Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, but his degree was in accounting only, it was discovered. Thompson blamed the error on a head-hunting firm that had been involved when he was named president of eBay's PayPal division, but the firm, Heidrick and Struggles, publicly discounted that claim, saying that it could prove it was false..

Yahoo announced Sunday that Thompson had left the company and that Ross Levinsohn, who had been in charge of the company's media websites, would step in as interim CEO while the board searches for a replacement. Fred Amoroso was also named chairman of the board, replacing non-executive Chairman Roy Bostock.

The board also announced it had settled a proxy fight by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who leads the Third Point investment fund, which owns about 5.8 percent of Yahoo. Loeb brought to light the discrepancy in Thompson's academic record, which played a central role in plunging the company into the latest of what has been a long series of controversies and missteps by Yahoo management.

Soon after Yahoo announced that Thompson had left the company -- it did not call his departure a "resignation" -- Kara Swisher, the reporter who broke the news that Thompson was out as CEO on the All Things D blog Sunday, posted Levinsohn's first memo to employees in which he sought to offer encouragement.

"Importantly, today's announcements lay to rest the unfortunate and serious distractions surrounding our senior leadership and the composition of our Board going forward," said the memo, which was said to have been obtained from multiple Yahoo sources.

"Of course, these changes will also raise new questions along with those it answers. I invite you to bring those questions to me, or any member of the executive leadership team, and we will answer them as forthrightly and promptly as we can. Please also look for an invite and plan to attend an all-hands meeting we are organizing for Monday afternoon -- we look forward to speaking with you further at that time," it went on to say before encouraging employees to focus on the momentum that the company has created in the last few months.

That seems to be a reference to Thompson's brief tenure as CEO. He was appointed to the post in early January and quickly made management changes and announced layoffs. About 2,000 positions were cut at Yahoo. Those layoffs were a catalyst in triggering Loeb to take action, with the investor arguing that Thompson should not have begun that level of job cuts without having first laid out a more detailed strategy.

Yahoo, once a leading Internet company, has stumbled in recent years as fierce competition from Google and later Facebook, among others, dented the company both in terms of users and finances. Thompson's hiring was widely seen as the balm that would soothe the company's wounds, brought in to replace Carol Bartz, whose no-nonsense, blunt style soon became more of a focus than the effort she put in to trying to turn the company around. Bartz was fired last September.

Yahoo also had rejected an acquisition offer from Microsoft, which remained a sticking point, including with Loeb, who cited that decision as one in a string of management errors.

What Would You Pay for Facebook Love?

Facebook might start charging users to promote their posts to friends. How much is that Facebook post worth to you?

A little report in a New Zealand newspaper is getting a ton of attention over on this side of Middle Earth. It seems that Facebook is testing out a scheme in which ordinary users can pay for the privilege of promoting their own posts.

According to the Fairfax NZ News, an unnamed Facebooker in Whangarei was posted something to his Facebook page, then was startled to be asked if he wouldn’t mind paying $1.80 to “make sure friends see this.”

Thinking it a scam, he contacted Facebook to find out what’s what. Nope, no scam, says Mia Garlick, manager of communications and policy at Facebook’s Australian outpost. Per the report:

"We're constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people's interest in this method of sharing with their friends," she said.

Facebook was trialling the feature at a range of different price points, including offering it "free", she said. This means that during the trial members may be asked to pay different amounts, or nothing, to use it.

Next, Facebook will enter the protection racket: Pay us five fins or that cute baby picture you just posted will be sleepin’ wid da fishes.

In the days leading up to its IPO – rumored to be hitting late next week – Facebook seems to be pulling out all the stops showing how it can make bundles of cash in ways other than selling ads against our Likes. For example, along with the new App Center, it announced this week that it may soon cost actual money to annoy your Facebook friends with games like CityVille and Words With Friends. And earlier today Facebook clarified its priva -- err, I mean Data Use Policy -- to make it clear that it intends to use your Facebook data to display ads outside of Facebook, essentially taking Google head on in the ad biz.

It seems clear that Facebook is taking the doubts that its business model can sustain Google-like growth very seriously in the days leading up to Stockapalooza. From a privacy perspective, the question is, how desperate will Facebook be for revenue in the coming years? At what point will it decide to sell user data directly? That’s the biggest worry with the company going public.

Taking this topic on from the entirely opposite direction, Abine Inc has come up with a tool that measures how much your data is worth to Facebook. Called the Val-You Calculator, it’s a simple seven-question quiz that generates a dollar amount ranging from $2 to $91 -- that’s how much Facebook will make from you each year, depending on where you live, how frequently you post, and other factors.

Average that out over Facebook’s approximately 800 million users and you arrive at around $4 billion -- or what Facebook made from ads alone next year. And that’s not even including how much we’re willing to pay to share “ROFLMAO” with all our Facebook peeps.

Windows 8 Roundup: Browser Makers Gripe; HP, Lenovo Sign On

Microsoft is taking heat from browser competitors Firefox and Chrome for blocking them out of planned Windows 8 devices that will be based on ARM processors.

These low-power machines will run Windows RT, which Microsoft describes as a new member of its Windows operating system family that won't allow installing third-party software.

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Firefox maker Mozilla says that means it won't be able to devise a version of its browser to run on Windows RT machines, something it says kills competition and is ultimately bad for customers.

"In practice, this means that only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed," writes Harvey Anderson, Mozilla general counsel in a blog post. "Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can't do the same."

He also hints that allowing Internet Explorer but effectively blocking other browsers may stir up already settled legal issues about browser bias. "If Windows on ARM is simply another version of Windows on new hardware," he writes, "it also runs afoul of the EC browser choice and seems to represent the very behavior the DOJ-Microsoft settlement sought to prohibit."

Mozilla project manager Asa Dotzler expands on the perceived problem in a separate blog post in which he acknowledges that initially this will affect mostly tablets. But he says that as ARM processors are more widely used, Windows RT will have a bigger footprint. "ARM will be migrating to laptop PCs and all-in-one PCs very quickly," Dotzler writes. "If you read Microsoft's blog posts about Windows on ARM, you'll see that they expect ARM PCs to cover the whole spectrum. ARM chips are already being used in servers. This is not a tablet-only concern."

No word from Microsoft on this.

Windows 8 Upgrades?

Microsoft plans a discount program for customers who buy Windows 7 computers this summer who later want to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, according to a CNET blog post that attributes the details to unnamed sources.

The intent apparently is to keep up sales of Windows 7 PCs during the run-up to the release of Windows 8, since customers might opt to wait a few months to buy the newer version.

It's not a free upgrade, so customers would buy a Windows 7 PC, then pay more to install Windows 8 on it. Depending on the pricing of the two platforms, that could be more or less expensive than just waiting for Windows 8 and paying for it all at once. Presumably Microsoft has this all thought through.

HP Bets its Tablet Future on Windows 8

HP CEO Meg Whitman says the company will start making tablets again after discontinuing them last year - and they will be based on the new Windows 8 operating system. No word on whether they will be x86 machines or ARM machines.

Whitman also pointed to new technology - memristors - that will eventually be worked into its PCs. A memristor is a resistor that also has memory in enough capacity that it could replace traditional storage in tablets and smartphones. No word on when they might come into play.

Lenovo Plans Windows 8 Convertible

Lenovo will come out with a Windows 8 version if its tablet/laptop that will take advantage of the operating systems support for traditional applications as well as its new touch-centric Metro aspect, the company's president of products Peter Hortensius told a Wall Street Journal blogger.

The device will be similar to the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga that looks like a laptop, but if you want to use it as a tablet, the keyboard hinges back behind the screen.

Timeframe for the device: 12 months.

No DVD Player

Windows 8 won't support playing DVD videos, at least not out of the box. Support for optical players has to come from either a Windows add-on at some unspecified extra fee, be bundled as part of a package by hardware manufacturers or bought from a third party and installed by the end user. There are also some free players out there that users could install.

Microsoft says licensing fees for the decoder is one reason for the decision. Another is that fewer and fewer PC hardware platforms come with optical drives, so it just doesn't make sense to include DVD video support on all of them that run Windows 8, Microsoft says.

ChkDsk Gets Better

In Windows 8, the ChkDsk utility that looks for and fixes disk problems has been made less disruptive, according to the Building Windows 8 blog.

Currently ChkDsk deals with the disk as a whole and therefore the machine can't be used while it is running. In Windows 8, the checks can be made in the background so users can keep working on the machines. If ChkDsk finds problems, it notes them and fixes them straight away when the machine is taken offline, reducing the downtime needed to fix disk problems.

New iPad: 4G No More (Sort Of)

Apple has stopped calling the new iPad "4G-capable" after regulators cracked down on its U.S.-only capability to connect to high-speed LTE networks. Although it is still listed as being "4G LTE capable," the new iPad is now called "Wi-Fi + Cellular" instead of "Wi-Fi + 4G" in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and several parts of Asia.

The new iPad featured 4G LTE connectivity from day one, but the catch is that it was only compatible with the high-speed networks in the U.S., namely AT&T and Verizon. Elsewhere, cellular connectivity was achieved through 3G data networks, including HSPA and HSPA+, which some carriers still labeled as 4G.

Apple's labeling drew criticism from regulators in Australia because its advertisements misled regarding the device's 4G connectivity, and Apple also got complaints from customers in Europe.

In Australia, Apple had to e-mail customers about the tablet's incompatibility with country’s carrier and offer a refund. In the U.K., the country’s Advertising Standards Authority threatened Apple with a marketing ban because carriers there are still debating over the implementation of 4G LTE.

Following the backlash to the new iPad’s 4G claim, it’s no surprise that Apple decided to quietly change the term to "cellular" to appease critics. Now, when you go to Apple’s page to buy an iPad, in the U.S. and several other countries, you won’t see the option to get a "new iPad Wi-Fi + 4G," but "Wi-Fi + Cellular" instead. Outside the U.S. the references to "4G connectivity" in the features description pages have been removed as well.

Meanwhile, while Apple preferred the term "cellular" to replace "4G LTE connectivity" outside the U.S., the name of the "iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G" remains unchanged. It’s still unclear whether the "4G" will be removed from the packaging of the new iPad as well, but it looks like Apple is making the change across the board now.

Senate to Look at Mozilla's Browser Competition Allegations

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will look into accusations by Mozilla that Microsoft is restricting access to important programming tools for browsers that will run in Windows RT, a political blog reported Friday.

The Hill cited unnamed aides to Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, as the source for its report.

Last week, Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, said Microsoft was withholding access to APIs -- application programming interfaces -- that Mozilla considers crucial for building a browser that can compete with Microsoft's own Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) on ARM devices.

Although IE10 will have access to those APIs in Windows RT, rival browsers, including Firefox, will not. Mozilla argued that access to the Win32 APIs were necessary to develop a version of Firefox that could render JavaScript quickly, as well as to isolate plug-ins and tabs to make the browser more secure from exploits and more stable overall.

In a blog post last week, Harvey Anderson, Mozilla's chief counsel, raised the antitrust flag, saying that Microsoft's blocking of the APIs "seems to represent the very behavior the [Department of Justice]-Microsoft settlement sought to prohibit."

Microsoft is no longer under U.S. government scrutiny in the wake of the landmark 1998 antitrust case, but the eventual settlement required Microsoft to share its APIs with third-party vendors. Microsoft has repeatedly promised to continue that sharing.

In answer to follow-up questions Friday, however, Anderson seemed to back away from any legal recourse. "We think the most effective way to resolve this is through critical discussion and transparency of the issues rather than through legal action," he said.

Google has said it shares Mozilla's concern over the Windows RT browser situation.

Microsoft has declined to comment on Mozilla's accusations.

Kohl's office was unavailable for comment Sunday.

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