Mobile Defense Blog
This is the official Mobile Defense company blog. Posts includes news, release notes, security tips, and other announcements from the Mobile Defense team.
Installing Mobile Defense as a system application
This tutorial outlines the necessary steps required to install Mobile Defense as a system application. When Mobile Defense is installed as a system application it can auto-enable your location providers (both Wireless and GPS) as needed. This is especially helpful if your device has been lost or stolen, and one or both providers is currently disabled. By following the steps below, you’ll also discover that Mobile Defense cannot be uninstalled.
January 30, 2010 at 8:13 am
If you don’t have GPS on, and you install the “System” version, android will prompt you with a yes/no box (privacy).
January 31, 2010 at 5:47 pm
This should only occur if you have Mobile Defense installed as a system app and the wireless network location provider is disabled. There is nothing we can do about this warning, it’s built into the Android OS and displayed anytime “Use wireless networks” is checked. Note, this is not caused by the GPS being disabled.
February 1, 2010 at 9:16 pm
I’m running cyanogen 4.2.14.1 with my apps auto installing on a partition of my memory card. Will this affect that?
February 1, 2010 at 9:23 pm
@Russ I’m running Cyanogen 4.2.12, apps2sd and 10MB GPU hack with Mobile Defense installed as a system app. Everything works fine… Please use the support forum if you have further questions: http://support.mobiledefense.com
February 2, 2010 at 10:08 pm
That worked Thanks! I’m running Cyanogen Mod 4.2… with App2SD. This originally broke MobileDefense. Once I followed these steps the Mobile Defense Prompt came up and asked if I want to protect my phone.
February 5, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Should one remove the global write permissions for /system/app (i.e., revert step 6) after installing in step 9? Or does MobileDefense automatically revert this after starting up?
February 6, 2010 at 6:41 pm
@Emil The system app install steps were previously updated on the forum and we forgot to add the cleanup instructions to the blog post. Thanks for the heads up! Everything should now be up to date. For further discussion see this thread: http://support.mobiledefense.com/viewtopic.php?id=569
February 16, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Typo – cleanup instructions should be mounted as ro (readwrite) not rw (readwrite)mount -o remount,ro -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
February 28, 2010 at 3:31 am
I installed MD as system app. Since I did not install from the market, it does not show up as ‘installed’ on the market. How will I receive any updates if the market link is not restored?Thanks. Awesome app. Better than anything else out there IMHO.
February 28, 2010 at 3:41 am
@Sud Thanks for the kind words! Mobile Defense has its own update functionality independent of the Market. http://goo.gl/oBPQ
February 28, 2010 at 6:55 am
Good to know. Thanks!!!
March 27, 2010 at 5:27 pm
this worked great!! thanks for the awesome app!
April 9, 2010 at 10:01 pm
I just wanted to share my findings in regard to installing MD as a system app from the phone itself. I have not been able to get “adb” working from my laptop so I found a way to do this using “Better Terminal” and the commands were slightly different. So I thought I would share them…The process is very similar, with just a few differences…Follow step 1 & 2Step 1: Uninstall current version of Mobile Defense if you have it installed.adb uninstall com.neevo.mobiledefenseStep 2: Download the latest Mobile Defense APK file. (From the link above)Step 3: Open “Better Terminal”Step 4: Switch to the root user.suStep 5: Remount the system partition as read-write.mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /systemStep 6: Change permissions on the system app directory so that you can add new APKs.chmod 777 /system/app**Here is where it is primarily different than above**Step 9: Finally, install Mobile Defense as a system application. Make sure your path for the APK file is correct. The example below assumes you are in the directory where you downloaded the APK in Step 2.install com.neevo.mobiledefense.apk /system/appCongratulations! If you made it through all of the steps above, Mobile Defense should now be installed as a system application.Clean up is similar just no need to exit from the appStep 10: Change permissions on the system app directory back to default.chmod 755 /system/appStep 11: Remount the system partition as read-only.mount -o remount,ro -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /systemExit from the app, restart your phone, get MD activated and you are good to go!
June 2, 2010 at 4:59 pm
The link in Step 2 above doesn’t seem to lead to a valid install file.
June 2, 2010 at 5:26 pm
@Keith Thanks for the heads up. The file was moved recently. I have updated the link in this post. Note, the current system app install methods (1&2) have some issues and we’ll be releasing an update soon that automates the whole process. http://support.mobiledefense.com/viewtopic.php?id=569
August 26, 2010 at 6:23 am
One question: even if installing as a system app means the MD can’t be uninstalled, couldn’t a thief just “clear data” to log the user out and render the locate feature useless?
August 26, 2010 at 12:24 pm
@JB When installed as a system app the clear data button should be grayed out.