You may not realize it, but if you lose your laptop, you often lose a big part of your life.  Nowadays computers are used for online shopping, social networking, and managing bank accounts.  Consumers often save their passwords to these things and if they fall into the hands of a criminal, they can wreak havoc on your life, identity, and money.  Unfortunately, as laptops become smaller and more popular, they also become a lot easier for thieves to steal right out from under owner’s noses.  Laptops are stolen out of backpacks and cases all the time.  They are left in common spaces such as hotel rooms and dorm rooms and people often think they can trust the ones sharing the space only to realize too late that they were mistaken.  This is why products like Lojack for Laptops by Absolute Software have been created.

Lojack is a program that can be installed on your computer that, once installed, is always running unnoticed in the background on your computer.  It requires you to install their software on your computer and pay for a yearly membership fee which is either 39.99 or 59.99 (off the Lojack website) for a year of standard or premium membership respectively.  If you have the premium subscription to the service, you could be eligible to $1000 if your computer isn’t found and returned to you after being stolen.

Lojack works by broadcasting your computers IP address along with other information about your computer when it is connected to the internet.  It usually does this about once a day, however once you report your computer stolen; it will start recording locations much more frequently (about every 15 minutes).  In order to put this process in motion you must fill out a police report and notify Lojack and provide them with a copy of the police report.  After that, they take care of the rest.  They use the information from the IP address updates and other data to obtain the location of your computer and with help from law enforcement, find and return it to you.  The other features that the software can utilize are remote file deletion, remote computer freeze, and daily tracking on the company’s website of your computer using IP address tracking.  Premium members can also use GPS tracking to view their laptops location.

Data delete works by deleting predetermined files as soon as the signal is delivered to the computer that it has been stolen.  This can include personal documents on your computer, photos, videos, and passwords saved on your web browser.  This greatly limits the damage done by theft by limiting the data that laptop thieves will have access to.  Again however, like the locator, this only works if the computer is connected to the internet.

The other way to stop thieves, computer freeze, won’t delete any files, only lock up your computer and display a screen saver with a message of your choice.  This provides a good alternative if you don’t have your files and passwords backed up anywhere or don’t want to risk losing anything important accidentally.

Lojack is also highly hidden inside your computer.  Even a technology savvy thief would have a hard time getting around it.  Many new computers are compatible with the Lojack BIOS software implant which means that Lojack is embedded in your computer where the operating system scan’t delete it and even if a thief wipes your hard drive or replaces it, Lojack will still work.  Even if your computer isn’t compatible with the BIOS, almost nothing short of wiping the entire hard drive will render Lojack inoperable.

This product is great for many people who are going to college and are going to be in dorm rooms with people they don’t know or don’t trust.  While laptop locks are one of the safest and most secure ways to protect your laptop from being stolen in the first place, Lojack does an extremely good job helping you get it back if it ever does.