Most of the mobile devices today come with one or other type of anti-theft protection. This anti-theft protection allows you various remote actions like locking, sending messages or erasing data in case your mobile device gets stolen or lost. If you have a Windows computer, then you can install free IPFetcher software to get a similar anti-theft functionality in it too.
The IPFetcher software is free to use and allows you to locate your stolen or lost PC through the IP address. The moment the thief connects to the internet, IPFetcher notifies you through email or by uploading files to a predefined FTP server. Using this information, you or legal authorities can investigate and pin-point the exact address where the PC is present.
You can download IPFetcher from the its website. The download is around one megabytes in size. The downloaded ZIP file contains two setup files – IPFetcher.msi and IPFetcherBackend.msi. The first file is setup for the IPFetcher interface that allows you to control the various settings for IPFetcher. The second file is the service that should be installed on the protected PC. In general, you have to install both the programs on your PC.
After the installation, you can start IPFetcher from its Start Menu shortcut (or by searching ipfetcher in Start Screen in Windows 8). You have to enter a blank password for the first time and you can see the configuration window for IPFetcher.
You can set the FTP server if you have access to one. For FTP server, you would need the FTP address, username and password. You can set the email SMTP server information which would include the server name, port number, username, password, and email information. For FTP server you can set the number of log entries to be uploaded. You have to set the repeat hour count which controls after how many hours the IP information is emailed or uploaded to FTP. You can also control the service status (start it, stop it or disable it) from the IPFetcher configuration window.
Once the IPFetcher program settings have been configured, you are all set. Now if you lose your PC or it gets stolen, and someone tries to go online using your PC, then you would start receiving the notifications about the IP address of that user. You can take these messages to the police and they can further investigate and hopefully find your PC.
Although IPFetcher follows a very nice approach, yet it has many loopholes. For example, the program can be uninstalled from the Control Panel without any problem. It does not even ask for any password before the uninstallation. A little smart thief can easily disable IPFetcher by removing it from your PC through the Control Panel.
You can download IPFetcher from http://www.ipfetcher.com/.