A lot of things can go wrong in life, for example, your laptop getting stolen. Apart from the market value of the laptop, the loss may extend to other aspects such as unauthorized access to confidential information and personal photos and videos stored on the laptop. In such cases, it makes us wonder how to track stolen laptop. It is also possible that you may have misplaced your laptop and want to locate it.
While OS providers such as Microsoft and Apple as well as certain laptop manufacturers have preinstalled tracking systems, it may not have the full list of features. Here are some advanced third-party software systems that can do a lot more in addition to tracking your stolen or misplaced laptop.
Prey – Prey offers a comprehensive range of solutions such as tracking stolen laptop, data protection and anti-theft tools. Prey can be utilized by both individuals as well as at organizational level to track thousands of devices. One of the notable aspects of Prey is that it is supports most of the popular Operating Systems such as Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, Ubuntu and Chrome. Prey can be installed on laptops, mobiles and tablets.
HiddenApp – This app can track your Apple, Windows and Chromebook devices. Some of the key features include real-time location tacking, advanced recovery tools, active device monitoring and remote lock and remote date wipe. You can access all the information about your device via a user-friendly dashboard. HiddenApp can also be used at enterprise level to tack various information such as user location, geofencing, screen activity snapshots, camera captures, keylog data, etc.
Pombo – If you are looking for a free software to track stolen laptop, one of the best options is Pombo. It can be downloaded from GitHub. It is designed to work with Windows Android and macOS. Pombo works a bit differently, in that, you will probably need assistance from the police. In case your laptop is stolen, you need to logon to the assigned web server. You need to download the last available info about your laptop, which can then be shared with the police. Pombo will show all the details such as last used IP address, nearby routes, webcam photos of the user and screenshots of websites visited. Such information can be used to track the stolen laptop.
Chip-based GPS trackers – Assuming that laptop tracking software may not always be useful, a chip-based GPS tracker can work as a better option. This happens when the stolen laptop is erased completely without connecting to the internet. A chip-based GPS tracker will work better, as it won’t be needing an active internet connection. These are quite small and can be easily fitted inside a laptop.
While some of these software and chip-based GPS trackers may not be free, they can still assure peace of mind. If you have data on your laptop that you don’t want anyone else to access, it would be better to invest in a dedicated laptop tracking software or chip-based GPS tracker.