Android

Keep Unwanted Calls at Bay with tellows

As high tech has paved the way to various forms of communication that we can take with us wherever we go, we are also blessed with the onslaught of spammers. While we never mean to share out cell phone number with unintended recipients, it gets out there. There a lots of ways you can keep unnecessary interruptions from diverting your time. You can turn off your device, you can mute it or you can put it away. None of those options really work for anyone who needs to be connected at all times to take the calls that are important.

One way to alleviate this issue is to block calls you know are unimportant. There are a lot of apps out there that do a pretty good job of blocking calls that you don’t want and allowing those that you need. Some are easy to use and actually work and others, not so much. One app that does a fairly good job is tellows Caller ID and Blocker.

tellows has one of the largest databases of numbers, making it a very reliable user reporting service for phone numbers and spam. It is also powered by its user community, so you know that it is legit. It allows users to see if an incoming call is a known or unknown number, it will block unwanted calls so you are not bothered by them at all.

The app itself brings full functionality to your phone. You can easily mark those numbers you want blocked and those numbers that should be allowed. You can also provide feedback into the tellows database on those numbers that are spam or potentially dangerous, to help others in the tellows community steer clear of them. Installation of the app is quick and easy. You provide a few simple permissions. Details maintained by the tellows database for each phone number will appear when someone from that same phone number calls you. From there, if you recognize that number and want to add it to your personal contacts list, you can do so with one tap.

The free version of tellows is features many functions that basic users would need. The app also offers Premium service for $8.99/year (tellows Harassment Protection). With the Premium service, you can block calls based on their spam score that is maintained by tellows. While tellows relies on your ability to connect to the internet to leverage its massive server-based database, it still protects you while you are offline, by storing a local database on your phone.

One feature I found useful was the ability to score callers through your call history. Sometimes, when you are ignoring an unknown call, you may not have time to provide feedback on it. Being able to do it through your caller history makes this feature accessible to all at any time.

The icon showing the rating of each number could be a bit simpler, smaller and cleaner. Right now, that icon has a lot going on with takes away from the other information.