Prey

Find your stolen laptop

Prey is a powerful tracking tool that helps you locate your stolen or misplaced computer thanks to the use of wifi and geolocation.

If your computer is stolen or you simply don’t remember where you left it, Prey can lend you a hand. All you need is mark it as Missing on your personal Control Panel on the Prey website, and the system will start sending reports every 20 minutes.

Prior to that you obviously need to install the Prey client on your computer and sign up on the developer’s website. Then you can add all the devices you’d like Prey to look after, so that if any of them is ever misplaced or stolen, you can use the program to track it down.

The reports created by Prey contain a bunch of information about the computer: currently running apps, network connections, screen snapshots and even a picture of the thief – that is, if your computer has a built-in webcam. Prey will use its current internet connection, but if there isn’t any, it will search for a free wifi spot.

The efficiency of Prey depends a lot on the thief’s actions: if they format your laptop’s hard drive right away, there’s little the program will be able to do. But in any case, it’s good to count on a tool that can help you recover your computer. As the Prey developers say, “there’s always a chance!”.

Prey tracks down stolen or misplaced computers and helps you locate and get them back.

Prey added to Ubuntu’s official package repositories.