Mobile Network Comparison

Does your mobile network give your phone number to every website you visit? Check whether your mobile network is affecting using our HTTP header checker.

Today, millions of UK mobile users discovered that O₂ is revealing their mobile number to every website they visit. Following a tweet last night from Lewis Peckover, O₂ users have confirmed the security breach. This is a particularly serious vulnerability as it lets hackers and social engineers know your number, network and location (through IP address) or exposes you to spam marketers.

The leak occurs as O₂ is silently proxying all web requests and adding in HTTP headers. For those that don’t know, HTTP headers are sent by all devices that access webpages and usually include important information to help with sending the request and receiving the internet site back. Web browsers can send any HTTP headers they like but they’re generally meant for things like language settings or for determining whether you’re on a phone or a computer. However, O₂ have added an additional header called “x-up-calling-line-id” that reveals your personal phone number.

According to the UK’s Data Protection Act:

“A person must not knowingly or recklessly, without the consent of the data controller (a) obtain or disclose personal data or the information contained in personal data, or (b) procure the disclosure to another person of the information contained in personal data.”

As telephone numbers are classified as personally identifiable information under the Data Protection Act, this breach is also probably illegal. The furious reaction of O₂ customers is currently going viral on Twitter and major news sources have already picked up the story. Meanwhile, a little-known talk given in 2010 by a Berlin-based security expert already warned against privacy leaks in mobile phone internet access.

O₂ have already acknowledged the breach on Twitter this morning and we’ll update the site as we hear more.

UPDATE 13:00: This issue seems to have been fixed by now. Please let us know if you still find that your number is being exposed.

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The mobile era is growing rapidly, and nowadays our mobiles do so much that there has become an overwhelming variety to choose from. But with all the companies and brands trying to profit from the mobile era, we are sometimes spoilt for choices.

This is a guide to help you pick out a phone suited just for you. Before buying a new phone, the first thing to ask yourself is; how much are you going to use your phone and what features do you need? There’s no point paying over the odds for the latest technology if you just need to keep in youch with your family.

Budget smartphones

Budget phones are made in mind for those that don’t want to spend more than £200 on a mobile, these aren’t going to be as good as some of the more expensive handsets but depending on your usage they could work out perfectly.

If you were to use your phone simply for calls, texts and browsing the internet, it would be wise not to spend any more than £150. In fact, most £100-150 handsets are good enough to play a few games on and download various apps to keep yourself updated. The Orange Monte Carlo offers a 4.3 inch screen, a 5 megapixel camera and 800MHz processor for just £119!

Even better, why not look at the new Orange San Francisco II or the great-looking T-Mobile Vivacity both of which can be had for less than £90 on PAYG. These are incredibly powerful phones and give even the iPhone 3GS a run for its money with a front-facing video camera and the powerful Android operating system.

If you are upgrading from a cheaper phone and have never owned a smartphone before, any of these budget models will blow you away with all the amazing things they can do.

High-end phones

So if a £100 handset can do all this, why does anyone pay £400 to £500 for some phones? The reason is that higher priced mobiles have a lot better hardware packed into their casing, offering quicker response and more features. If you use your phone a lot, require lots of apps and a high-resolution camera, you might need to invest in a high-end handset.

For example, the Samsung Galaxy S2 offers a dual core 1.2 GHz processor and an industry-leading 8 megapixel camera. With a handset like this you’ll be able to run multiple apps at once seamlessly and play much more graphically demanding games. You can get it for £409.99 SIM free from Amazon and you can be sure that you have one of the most powerful and high-tech phones around.

Just for texting

But what if you just want a simple handset for calling and texting? You definitely shouldn’t bother forking out £500 for the newest smartphone.

There are a lot of mobiles these days which are very cheap, if you want something that you can text easily with, look for a phone with a Qwerty keypad, similar to those you use with your PC or laptop. Look at the Samsung Genio Qwerty – this stylish phone has recently been massively reduced so is great value for money and a decent alternative to overpriced BlackBerrys. It’s now available for just £29.95 from Carphone Warehouse.

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The ZTE Blade, known as the Orange San Francisco was released in the UK on 21 September 2010, and has now sold over 80 million units and is available in over 30 different countries. In early 2011 the phone was reported to have sold more units than the iPhone 4.

So what made this such a good buy? And more importantly, will its sequel, the San Francisco II surpass the ZTE Blade’s standards?

Price

The first main point about the original San Francisco was that at only £99, it was a very affordable smartphone. The San Francisco II also offers the same price from the Orange store and comes with a free gift box including a pair of headphones worth £60. In our opinion, this is by far the best value PAYG handset currently available.

Storage

The original San Francisco came with 150MB internal storage, and an external 2GB SD card, with support of up to 32GB – perfect for listening to music and movies on the go. However, when it came to apps, not all applications and games allowed SD storage, meaning downloading a few apps could leave your internal storage full. And even when you could transfer all the data of an app to the SD card without help from other software, it seemed the phone struggled a little to process all that data, especially on ad-supported apps such as Angry Birds.

The San Francisco II offers an internal storage space of 512MB, with this space you can finally install applications without having to worry about running out of space. Not for a while at least anyway…

Battery

The battery life on the San Francisco II is slightly better than the original, offering an extra 24 hours standby time, and around an extra 30 minutes talk time. Not much improvement, but at just £99 you can’t expect much more.

Camera

The camera on the ZTE blade was horrendous, even at 3.2 megapixels. It camera had trouble capturing anything in low light, had no flash, and was very shaky when recording, even if you had a steady hand.

The San Francisco II boasts a 5 megapixel camera, with flash and auto focus, a major improvement from the first San Francisco. Hopefully making videos on here will be easier now we can actually see what we’re doing…

Software

First of all: the Orange branding. Yuck! I’ve got to say, the Orange branding on the San Francisco II isn’t as intrusive as the original, and still resembles the standard Android layout, with a stock Gingerbread 2.3.5 ROM. But we still feel the look isn’t as nice as some Android phones, and once again Orange has had to run their hands over a perfectly good operating system.

Round-up

Probably one of the reasons the first San Francisco sold so well was because it was very easy to customise, loading ROMs, unlocking etc. was very easy and there is lots of support forums all over the internet.

The San Francisco II is not so easy to unlock, unlocking with Orange costs £20, and unlocking for free is rather complicated, although it can be done there are a few mistakes that can be made so it’s best to read up what you need to before trying to unlock.

A good buying point for the ZTE Blade was that it was a good starter Android handset, at a budget price. Although the camera is improved, and now has a front facing camera too, if you have previously owned the San Francisco there isn’t much else new. The processor is still at 800Mhz even though this should be ample for most usage profiles.

So if you’re happy with an Android budget phone using the Orange network, this phone may be for you, but those Android enthusiasts who are into loading ROMs etc. You might not get as much as you did from the original San Francisco just yet.

However, overall there’s no denying that this is a significant upgrade in the hardware and the newer version of Android is also a huge bonus. Overall, if you’re looking for a budget smartphone on PAYG, you won’t do any better than this. In many ways, this is a better handset than much more expensive smartphones and with the power of Android, many will prefer it to the iPhone.

Click here to get the new San Francisco II for the great price of only £99 from Orange today.

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