[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MissionImprobable:
I was still able to wipe data and cache after I sent a text to set it as lost, but once the phone restarted the Anti-theft app was still active so that aspect that is common to Cerberus still works at least. I'm about to see if it survives RSD.

Edit: Alrighty. As stated Anti-theft survived wipe/reset so that part holds true, and RSD is unable to function so it is preventing USB debugging access. The only thing that shows that anything out of the ordinary is going on is that you have the option to set one app as admin and it does not appear with the rest of your apps in the app drawer, but as you can name it anything that you want only someone very familiar with Avast/Cerberus would have any reason to suspect that it's an anti-theft app.

One thing that may give it away that the phone is being tracked is that an SMS goes to the device saying that it has been marked lost and depending on your network and when the thief powers off the phone it still may show up in the inbox and they could see it. Considering that many thieves may switch SIMs as soon as they get the phone though, this should be a non-issue and is covered by the forwarding and SIM-tracking portions of the App.

I would like to play with all this further, but as of now it appears that Avast pretty much performs as promised and your phone will still be trackable even if someone does a battery pull and reset. You will have to send an additional Lost SMS if you wish to lock the phone again, but you can send your other commands: SIREN ON, LOCATE, etc and it the phone will react appropriately. The LOCATE command will give you the owner name, Cell ID, Carrier, and new ID. If they change SIM cards the new SIM info will be forwarded to the two numbers you chose as friends during setup. You can do a test to make sure they'll get the message, but I would like to actually try this but my phone is CDMA only so I can't vet that out.

Declaring lost does Automatically power WIFI, GPS, and Data back on as promised. I apparently misspoke about being able to prevent access to recovery. When locked it is impossible to access the system menus on the phone, but as noted it can be wiped and reset from recovery though Avast will survive this and it looks like Cerberus should as well since it utilizes a similar method.

Don't know how much more to ask for from an anti-theft app, especially a free one. The only nice addition would be being able to lock recovery the way you can BIOS, though this may make a savvy thief more likely to toss the phone so maybe it's a good thing that they would be able to flash a new Rom via SD and the phone could still be tracked with them none the wiser.

---------- Post added at 03:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:14 AM ----------

All my important data is backed up so that I'm not worried about. As to the thief bit, this app is great. When it becomes clear to thieves that stealing a phone will at best result in them getting a GPS tracker that they need to toss and at worse give them something that actually lands them in jail then thefts will certainly drop off. Apps like this and Cerberus will make phone theft something that's benefits certainly do not outweigh the potential costs.