Adobe Reader: the return of text reflow

Adobe made a stupid mistake when they removed text reflow from their Android PDF reader.

Text reflow is an essential feature for any PDF reader that has to display PDFs on small phone screens in a way that's fit for reading.

The good news is that Adobe is willing to learn from their mistakes. They updated their app again and put text reflow back in.

The bad news is that the resurrected text reflow option is well hidden. Tapping the menu button does nothing. To reflow your text you now have to tap near the top of the screen and hit the icon that looks like a page. The next version should put the reflow option back into the menu, because that's where you look first when you want to play with the settings.

• Adobe Reader (Android Market)

The (very) old Adobe Reader version 10.0.2 still comes with text reflow in the menu:

• Adobe Reader 10.0.2 at ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/android/10.x/10.0.2/
• Adobe Reader 10.0.2 for Android on Google

Android Market: Just in went out

Did you keep your old Android Market for the "Just in" tab? Then you might as well unfreeze the market updater, because the Just in tab doesn't work anymore.

It's not completely gone, but the stream of fresh apps has dried up. Now when you tap "Just in" in your old market you get a selection of apps from the "top new paid" and "top new free" pages of the new market.

This makes it harder to discover new apps that still have to gain enough momentum to make it to the top lists. On the other hand, it makes it harder for spammers to trick the system with fake updates. Of course it would be way better if Google would find another way to fight market spam, but then they'd have to moderate the market to some extent and that costs time and money.

There are a few alternatives for the Just in tab. You could look at the new entries in forums like i-Pmart, Mobilism, and Noeman, or check Android app blogs like androidcentral and MobileCruze, but this only gets you a very small selection of new apps and it can be difficult to tell legit apps and warez apart.

The closest thing to the dead Just in tab is the Latest Android apps page on AppBrain, but it's not even close to the Just in tab of the old Android Market.

The new market versions are like an overcrowded shopping mall for music, games, junk, and bloat. And oh yeah, they also have an app store thrown in. Before you throw out your old market, make a backup. You may want to go back, because versions up to v2.3.6 are clean and uncluttered.

• Old Android Market (v2.3.6) on xda
• Latest Android apps page on AppBrain

Virus scanner avast finds, locks, and wipes your phone and gets better if you root your phone

Virus vaccine

The most popular free antivirus app for Android is Lookout, but for how long? Avast is done beta testing. The paint is not dry yet, but it already blows Lookout out of the water.

Whether you really need a virus scanner on your Android phone is open for debate. I'd say better safe than sorry, especially if you're one of those people who likes to try lots of new apps from all over the internet.

But what makes avast really worth installing are its other features. Where other security apps see rooting as the root of all evil, avast adds extra security options to rooted phones that can make the difference between keeping your phone safe or having your data stolen.

Firewall

If your phone is rooted (and if you read this blog you probably rooted your phone the day you took it out of the box) avast doubles as a firewall. It doesn't have the custom scripts and logging that DroidWall does, but it has something else. Just like DroidWall, avast can stop apps from going online through WiFi, mobile data, or both. But avast gives you an extra option: you can allow apps to use your data connection in your own country, but not when roaming abroad.

Find, lock, and wipe lost phones

And now for the number one reason to grab a copy of avast from the market: its lost phone options.

Avast can locate your phone, make it scream, SMS you its new phone number if someone changes the SIM card, lock it, wipe it (and your SD card too), block access to the settings, force the data connection to stay on so you don't lose track of your phone, and even make its anti-theft/lost phone features survive a hard reset.

The remote control options only work by SMS, but avast promised that they will add web-based control early 2012. Something to look out for, although I guess Lookout has a different view.
Update: web-based remote control has arrived.

Other security apps have remote control features too, but avast gives it all away for free.

• avast! (Android Market)

Tame Shazam to make it stop shaking and phoning home

How to find out what song's playing? SoundHound or Shazam? Two know more than one, so I keep both.

But when I updated Shazam it started to do strange things. The "vibrate on tag" option that I switched off insisted on reactivating all by itself. And instead of sitting quietly in the background after I was done Shazamming, it kept going online and ate over a megabyte of data every day even when I didn't use the app. A megabyte or two may not sound like a big deal, but just go abroad and you'll soon find that a useless megabyte per day on an expensive roaming connection adds up real quick.

It seemed that there was no way to stop it. Worse yet, Android insisted on auto-loading Shazam into memory even when I didn't touch the app. And then it went eating data in the background and defaulting back to shaking on tagging.

I was about to reinstall an ancient version of Shazam but then I found the fix by accident. When you update Shazam, make sure to tag at least one song (it can be silence, that doesn't matter). After a single tag, whether succesful or not, your vibrate preference will stack and Shazam will no longer phone home behind your back.

Edit: The single tag method is only a temporary fix. After a while Shazam picks up its bad habits again.
Edit 2: Like v3.6.1, Shazam v3.8.1 doesn't leak data, but versions 3.8.2 and 3.9.0 do.

• Shazam (Android Market)