When it comes to securing your BlackBerry smartphone when it is lost or stolen, we have BlackBerry Protect which allows us to remotely wipe, lock or make the device beep. You can also locate where it is using GPS. How about adding the ability to take a snapshot of the person who may have stolen your precious BlackBerry smartphone? That's what PushProtect aims to do, and we take a look at how the app works and how useful it would be.

The first thing to note here is that PushProtect requires you to use Pushbullet.com, so you will need a Google account as this is what Pushbullet uses as login credentials. The reason it connects to the Pushbullet.com service is because that is where the snapped pictures will be sent. (Check out our review on third party client BlackBullet). It uses the front-facing camera to take the picture, and it will do so intermittently. Specifically when you turn the screen on, either by swiping or using the power button. The photo will immediately be uploaded, provided there is an internet connection. This would naturally become annoying when you're sitting at home, so the developer has set up a Wi-Fi Safety Zones feature, where you can set your home Wi-Fi as a secure network and PushProtect will not take snapshots whenever you're connected to your home Wi-Fi or any other network you define as secure. It would still mean that when you're out and about, every time you whip out your device to check your messages, it will always take a snapshot. Then again, you never know when you're going to lose it so it may prove useful.

Due to the fact PushProtect may take dozens of snapshots during the day you can also specify how often it will clear your uploaded snaps from your Push Bullet account. By default, it is set to 24 hours. The minimum duration is 1 hour while the maximum time is 48 hours. However, while they clear in your Push Bullet account, the snaps will still be saved on your device.

When PushProtect takes a snapshot, you'll see the LED light flash blue, it will then be followed by a green LED to indicate that the photo has been uploaded. If you have the latest version of BlackBullet installed, you'll also see a yellow LED to say that all connected devices to the Push Bullet service have received the snap. This feature can be turned off in the app settings.

PushProtect isn't meant to be an alternative to BlackBerry Protect, it's more like an enhancement to the service and it may come in handy if you can get a clear picture of the culprit to use when reporting your device lost or stolen. PushProtect is available for all BlackBerry 10 smartphones and has an introductory price of $0.99, which isn't bad for an additional layer of security on your device.

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