Lookout Life Antivirus Review 2024: Is It Reliable?

Lookout Life is a lightweight mobile antivirus suite. It comes with a reliable malware scanner that performed well during my extensive tests and a handful of features designed to keep your phone secure and your information private, including:

• Safe Browsing.
• Wi-Fi protection.
• Remote phone lock (Android).
• Data breach monitoring tools.
• Up to $1 million for identity theft protection.

I really like the data breach monitoring. When I entered an old email address I used to use everywhere, Lookout Life immediately pulled up a handful of data breaches where my email (and in some cases my passwords) leaked. It can also monitor sensitive information like your social security number, insurance information, and much more.

The rest of the features are pretty decent, and the whole app is easy to use. That said, I did encounter a few visual bugs in the UI, and the web protection would occasionally let me access sites that it said it had blocked (Norton’s mobile web protection is better).

Despite that, it’s pretty good overall. Plans are cost-effective, and you can try out the Basic Free plan to get a feel for the app, but unfortunately, there’s no free trial of the paid plans.

Lookout Life Full Review — Decent Antivirus App With Excellent Identity Theft Protection

Lookout Life is a decent mobile antivirus with effective identity monitoring tools. The malware scanner performed well in my tests and the data breach monitoring informed me of instances where my personal data was leaked. The web protection tools missed a few dangerous sites that Norton caught, but other than that, Lookout Life is pretty good.

There are 3 plans: Lookout Life Basic Free, Lookout Life Premium, and Lookout Life Premium Plus. Basic Free contains the scanner and a few other security features, like a tool that detects malicious apps based on their behavior. Premium adds Wi-Fi scanning, breach reports, and more, with Premium Plus adding up to $1 million in identity theft insurance and 24/7 restoration assistance. Lookout Life is also available as part of the F-Secure Total bundle.

Lookout Life Plans & Pricing — Well Priced Plans + 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Lookout Life offers 3 mobile security plans, and it also comes bundled with F-Secure Total. The Lookout Life Basic Free plan offers app security, system advisor, and a locate function (if your device is lost or stolen). Lookout Life Premium ($29.99 / year) adds safe browsing, a privacy advisor, theft alerts, and Lock & Wipe, and Premium Plus adds the identity protection features.

Plans can be purchased as a monthly or yearly subscription. Premium Plus is pretty cheap given the identity theft protection features, but I’d like to see an option for a free trial of the premium features.

F-Secure does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but the terms will be different if you subscribe to Lookout Life through your app store.

Here’s an overview of Lookout Life’s plans:

Lookout Life Security Features — Near-Perfect Malware Detection Rates, Great Identity Monitoring + More

Lookout Life’s malware scanner detected roughly 99% of malware in my tests. Combined with a minimal impact on my performance, it’s one of the better mobile malware scanners. Still, it didn’t crack the 100% score that Norton consistently achieves. It also blocks malicious apps (there are a lot of these on the major app stores). Notably, Lookout Life blocks apps using behavior-based detection as well as a database of sketchy apps, so it can work against the latest threats.

Lookout Life’s web protection isn’t bad, but I encountered some worrying issues. While it blocked most dangerous websites I tried to visit, it would occasionally tell me a site was blocked but still let me access it. This only happened a few times, but it is concerning. I never had this problem while testing Norton or Bitdefender’s mobile apps.

Safe Browsing does use a VPN service to block dangerous sites, but it isn’t actually a VPN. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how this unusual method enhances Lookout Life’s ability to block dangerous sites and, given my experiences with the app, I’m somewhat skeptical. That said, the aspects of Safe Browsing that use the VPN service will automatically turn off if you’re using a VPN, so you don’t need to worry about any interference.

If you want a tool that will actually enhance your privacy by encrypting your web traffic and changing your IP address, or you just want to browse the web as if you’re from somewhere else, you’ll have to look into a tool like ExpressVPN.

In contrast, the identity monitoring tools are great. Lookout Life uses Allstate’s Identity Monitoring service to track sensitive info like your email, phone number, social security number, and a whole lot more. If any of the information it’s tracking is involved in a breach, you’ll be notified and given advice on what steps you should take. It also comes with up to $1 million in identity theft insurance and a 24/7 helpline you can use to deal with the consequences of identity theft. What’s more, Lookout Life offers social media monitoring — but this is a bit invasive in my opinion as it will read and analyze all of your social media output. Overall, though, the identity protection tools are a great value given Lookout Life’s price. Still, I think Norton LifeLock provides even better protection in this area.

Lookout Life comes with a handful of other tools, all of which worked pretty well in my tests. It includes a fantastic tracking tool that automatically records your device’s location whenever the battery is low, so you can find it even when powered off. If you’re just not sure where your phone is, you can use the app to make it sound an alarm.

Additionally, Android owners can use the app to remotely lock the device and wipe all its data. The other Android-exclusive tools are Privacy Advisor, a tool that lets you see which apps have permissions and easily manage them, and System Advisor, which makes sure your OS is working properly and hasn’t been modified by hackers.

Overall, Lookout Life comes with decent core security features, great identity theft protections, and accessible anti-theft features. It doesn’t have as many features as Norton or Bitdefender, but it’s still a good antivirus.

Lookout Life Ease of Use & Setup — Easily Navigable User Interface (Can Be Buggy)

Lookout Life is simple to set up and use, but I experienced a few problems. Starting with the positives, the UI is easy to navigate. From the home page, you can tap on any of the 3 general feature categories and then pick the specific tool you’re looking for.

However, the UI was occasionally buggy. For example, the Theft Protection feature always said “Turn on,” despite having every feature active and permissions granted to everything. While that’s not too bad, I never experienced UI glitches like that with mobile antiviruses like Norton or Bitdefender. I also had trouble creating an account. Eventually, I discovered the reason: my chosen password didn’t meet the requirements. This was frustrating because I never got a notification explaining that that was the issue.

That said, aside from a few visual bugs I ran into, I never had problems using or finding any of the features or settings menu.

Lookout Life Customer Support — Email Support + FAQs

Lookout Life offers an FAQ page and email customer support, but that’s it. To be fair, the FAQ has a good mixture of detailed responses and generalized information.

The email support was passable. I emailed them with a few specific questions and got responses within a few hours. It wasn’t anywhere near as fast as Norton’s live chat, but it’s by no means the worst email support I’ve interacted with.

Overall, Lookout Life has decent customer support. I’d like to see a live chat, phone support, or community forum to flesh it out, but the FAQ is detailed and email support is responsive and helpful.

Is Lookout Life Reliable?

For the most part, yes. The biggest caveat is that the web protection wasn’t great. Lookout Life repeatedly alerted me that it was blocking me from opening malicious links, but all it did was stop them from sending me notifications.

Now, aside from that (notable) flaw, the rest of the package held up well in my tests. The malware scanner caught the vast majority of samples I tested, and the identity monitoring tools were adept at detecting breaches.

Overall, Lookout Life is mostly reliable and reasonably priced, and it’s one of very few mobile-only tools that offer identity theft protection. However, I would like to see a free trial of the paid features and a decent money-back guarantee added.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Lookout Life free?

While Lookout Life has a very basic free antivirus, most of its features are limited to the premium subscriptions. The free version includes essential protections like malware scanning, but to access comprehensive security features such as identity monitoring, theft alerts, and advanced privacy tools, you’ll need to upgrade to Lookout Life Premium or Premium Plus.

What platforms is Lookout Life available on?

Lookout Life is available on Android and iOS devices and can be found on the Play Store or the App Store respectively. If you need an antivirus for your computer, consider checking out F-Secure Total; it’s a decent antivirus that comes bundled with Lookout Life so you can cover all of your devices.

Does Lookout Life have a VPN?

No, not really. It uses a VPN as part of a feature that blocks dangerous sites, but it’s nothing like a standalone VPN or the kind that comes bundled with antiviruses like Norton. While it does help keep you safe on the internet, it won’t let you encrypt your data, let you choose a server, or anything else that a genuine VPN provides.