Absolute Lojack Review – Absolute Home and Office for Laptops

Abosulte LoJack is software that can be installed on a wide range of laptops. The software is designed to track a stolen laptop, and provide local police with the information they need to help get it back. It can remotely track a stolen laptop on a map, delete files from it, and remotely lock it so it cannot be used.

Absolute LoJack for Laptops is now officially known as Absolute Home & Office.

It was originally known as CompuTrace and is owned by Absolute Software Corporation in Canada.

Absolute Home & Office Review

When a laptop is stolen, the first thing a user is supposed to do is report the theft to their local law enforcement agency. However, recovering stolen laptops is not easy, in fact a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer indicates that less than 30 percent of the stolen laptops from airports are recovered to their rightful owners.

Yet each day thousands of laptops and electronic devices are stolen, so if you’re looking to safeguard your laptop from theft, installing and activating Absolute LoJack can help recover your laptop when you find yourself in that unfortunate situation.

How Does Absolute LoJack Work?

Initial Setup

When initially installed on your laptop, the LoJack software will automatically contact the Absolute central computer to register it in their systems. It will record the laptop’s serial number and you will set your own ID and password. That’s it – now you can grab a coffee and wait for it to be stolen.

Report stolen

In the event it does leave your office, home, hotel room or car trunk, you can either dial 1-877-337-0337 (if inside the US or Canada) or you can go to another device to report it stolen. At that point the Absolute recovery team springs into action, and lists your laptop on their “most wanted” list.

Tracking Methods

It is worth mentioning that when your laptop is switched on and connected to the internet it is in constant quiet connection with the Absolute secure servers. So when your laptop is reported stolen, the servers try to track the stolen laptop via three different ways.

First if the laptop connects via old fashioned modem then Absolute will trace the telephone number. Second, and more common, if the laptop connects using a broadband connection then Absolute will trace with the cooperation of the Internet Service Provider. Third, is a tracking method so secret that Absolute wont reveal.

Absolute Support Team

The Computrace LoJack recovery team does not employ traditional tech customer service agents, instead it includes ex-police officers  – many from the Vancouver police department. When informed about the theft, this team contacts the local law enforcement, and directs them to the location of the stolen device.

Local Police Involvement

You might be wondering if the police are really interested in trying to fetch your stolen laptop, well they are when LoJack is involved because they know this enables a sure fire way to pinpoint device’s location.

In addition, the police are well aware that in many cases, other criminal activity may be involved such as identity theft, drugs, and weapons. Therefore retrieving the laptop can lead to their discovery and successful prosecution. Sometimes the laptop may be found surrounded by other stolen property, thanks to you that property can be returned to the owners.

Who is This Product For?

The Computrace LoJack software is an ideal choice for anyone looking to protect their Windows or Mac laptop from data and physical device theft.

Product Versions

It can be had in a choice of 3 versions – Premium, Standard, and Basic. The Premium edition adds a $1,000 service guarantee that entitles victims of computer theft to receive up to this amount if the Computrace LoJack-enabled laptops are not recovered, for example if they are somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Wide Compatibility

Absolute Home & Office (aka Absolute LoJack) is available for both Mac and PC’s, and supports several different operating system versions including Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 and even Vista (note that Windows 8 RT is not supported, the RT version comes pre-installed on certain laptops, it was last updated in 2015 so chances are if you have a newer laptop it is not that version).

Apple laptops are supported for Mac OS X versions 10.9 or higher.

Absolute Home and Office – Standard

Overview of Key Features

Laptop Geolocation

When you access Aboslute’s secure website you can display the laptop’s location on a map using Wi-Fi geolocation and GPS coordinates.

Stealthy operation

One of the noteworthy features of the software is that it works silently and invisibly in the background, and it has no noticeable impact on the system or internet performance.

Experienced recovery team

Having a team that consists of former police officers means that it provides a remarkable physical recovery rate.

Guaranteed Compensation

Another great reason for installing Computrace LoJack is that in the event the laptop cannot be recovered you will be compensated by Absolute for up to $1,000 (Premium Edition).

Remote Wipe

This helps prevent identity and data theft, given that many users store private photos, financial data, and passwords on their laptops.

Persistent Protection

The software stays intact even when the hard drive on the program laptop has been reformatted or replaced.

High Recovery Rate

The company claims to have recovered over 28,000+ devices in over 100 countries worldwide. In terms of numbers, that’s a whopping $29 million in stolen property returned to their thankful owners.

Conclusion

Laptops are not inexpensive purchases, and you definitely won’t want to have to replace them frequently. Considering that robbery and data theft are not going out of style soon, it is wise to invest a small of amount of money to ensure your laptop is protected against both physical theft and data theft. Both are equally as important. Having tracking software installed on your laptop might not guarantee its recovery but it might just be the best option you have.

Question – If the laptop is locked how does the Geolocation function work?

Premium version customers can track their laptops via Wi-Fi triangulation or GPS. Standard version customers can track via IP address only. To ensure greater accuracy for premium customers, they use Wi-Fi Triangulation to pinpoint the location.

Wi-Fi-Triangulation works by looking at the nearby Wi-Fi hotspots to discover where a device is located. Recall, that when you try to connect to a Wi-Fi, your laptop presents a list of all the nearby Wi-Fi hotspots. The combined characteristics of those hotspots will be unique and thus identifiable.

The Geolocation feature is for customers to visually track their computers for day-to-day use in non-theft scenarios. Geolocation does require the laptop to be switched on and connected to a network, however it could still work if the laptop was locked. Even though your screen may be locked, your laptop is still busy behind the scenes. It can still be made aware of the nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and pass that on to the Absolute software to help determines its geographic location.

The locate service is optional and customers can choose to disable it. Importantly – turning it off and disabling it does not impact the protection of your laptop or any attempts to recover it if stolen. For true theft scenarios, Absolute has a few other tricks up their sleeve to help them recover devices.

So why use the geolocation service if Absolute doesn’t need it? There are several scenarios where the locate service can be useful. One scenario would be that you might want to use the locate service in the situation where you were trying to establish if your laptop was really stolen or just temporarily lost. Perhaps you are at work and suspect you mislaid it at home, in that case you could use the locate service to check your laptop’s last reported whereabouts.