LAlarm is a free software that helps in preventing your netbook from getting stolen. When a thief tries to steal your netbook, LAlarm sounds a loud alarm in the same manner as car alarm. This can deter the thief from stealing your netbook. Another similar application that Mezanul covered earlier is Prey.
Netbooks are primarily used while on the move.This greatly increases their potential of getting stolen. Also, their small size also helps thieves, as they can easily hide it within their clothes after stealing.
LAlarm is a free software that helps in preventing netbook theft. LAlarm does primarily 2 things:
- Prevents your netbook from getting stolen.
- Alerts you if your netbook is stolen, and deletes your sensitive data.
LAlarm works on Windows-based Netbook, and will not work if you are using Ubuntu Netbook Remix.
Prevent Your Netbook from Thieves:
To prevent your netbook from thieves, LAlarm works on a very simple logic. Before leaving your netbook unattended, either plug your netbook in a power outlet, or tie it with a table using USB drive and a neck strap. See the image below how that can be done.
After that, just press the Win + L key to lock your netbook. Now, if a thief unplugs your netbook, or removes USB drive, a loud alarm will start sounding. This alarm will stop only when you login to your netbook with your credentials. This alarm should be good enough to surprise and confuse the thief, and make him just run away without your netbook.
Apart from that, LAlarm also provides feature like proximity alarm and Inactivity alarm that alert owner if netbook logs into a different IP than what is pre-defined, or netbook is left unattended for a long time.
Erase Netbook Data if it is Stolen:
In case a thief manages to steal your netbook, one thing you might be most worried about is your sensitive data. LAlarm takes care of this too. In case your netbook is stolen, and the thief tries to login to netbook with wrong credentials, LAlarm will securely erase your pre-defined files and folders. Once the data deletion process is complete, LAlarm can even send you an email (only if netbook is connected to internet).
Apart from this, LAlarm can also send you an email and SMS when it detects that netbook is stolen. This works only if netbook is connected to internet.
Final Thoughts:
I find LAlarm a very effective deterrent against netbook theft. However, it is definitely not fool-proof. For example, thief might simply shutdown your netbook before stealing it, and no alarm will sound in that case. However, I would still use this software on my netbook, as it will help at least in majority of situations, if not all. It is also helpful to encrypt data disk.
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A good thief will recognize the USB stick and shut down computer, removing the hard drive later so that he can scan it to try and get at your data. If he can’t he’ll just wipe the drive and sell the Netbook.
I’d say only amateur’s would not notice the USB lanyard and get caught. It should deter the mid-range thieves, leaving only idiots and experts thieves as threats.
[...] is a portable application for netbook users which provides an extra layer of security by disabling the mouse and keyboard, except for the release key [...]