MAY 20, 2016

FlexiSPY vs. Mobile Spy Android Which is the best for Spying on Facebook?

BREAKING NEWS: Mobile Spy is back online but its software is visible

Mobile Spy is no longer hidden. If you are a Mobile Spy customer their software will no longer be hidden and it will be permanently visible on the phone. Please head over to the FlexiSPY Trade In Program, where they will take Mobile Spy off your hands.

This article compares FlexiSPY and Mobile Spy for spying on Facebook chat on your target phone. In the search for the best spyphone, we also discuss shared media and what kind of “rich content” is captured by each product. If you’re interested in how we conduct our testing.

Oddly, Mobile Spy does not make any claims whatsoever about what they do or don’t capture. Their web site simply advertises to “monitor Facebook”. Facebook “monitoring” was introduced with Mobile Spy’s new version 6.6. However, we tested both Mobile Spy 6.5 as well as 6.6, and no Facebook capturing of any kind was ever successful.

We did receive logs when testing other IM chat services with Mobile Spy 6.5 but were unable to receive any monitored logs from any IM services with the latest Mobile Spy 6.6. We contacted Mobile Spy support who acknowledged technical issues and were told they are working on it. Initially, we held off this review but it’s been a month without any change, and no indication of when Mobile Spy’s IM capturing may eventually work again.

mobile spy screenshot

Using Mobile Spy 6.5 we had a margin of success capturing WhatsApp logs and a few others, but even in that version, only basic text was captured. All other media (pictures, location, etc.) either wasn’t captured at all or was displayed as random unreadable characters in those message logs.

The communication Mobile Spy did capture was displayed in spreadsheet-like rows and columns, while FlexiSPY’s layout is more conversational with each contact on alternating sides for easy readability, the same way Facebook is displayed on the phone itself.

Aside from Facebook, Mobile Spy also claims to capture WhatsApp, iMessage, Twitter, Hangout, Viber, Skype, Line, Fring, BBM, ChatOn and Kik. However, as of update to 6.6, none of Mobile Spy’s advertised IM monitoring produced any results, even basic text logs.

Is rich media really so important?

IM’s go far beyond the old text days of SMS, now offering a variety of communication which creates more of a conversational, interactive experience. You can follow words on a page, but you lose both the subtle and more emotional responses if you can’t also follow emoticons, pictures, audio messages and other rich content that’s often sent in place of words. If you want the real meaning behind an IM conversation, you need to capture more than simple text alone.

mobile spy screenshot

If a picture is sent by a contact and your target user replies “I want that,” then without seeing the picture you can’t know if your target is referring to a stack of luscious ribs… or a ribbed six pack. If they say, “Meet me here” and send location data or send a voice recorded message that says, “I love you,” you’ll miss this entirely if location and audio aren’t also being captured.

Facebook chat offers a variety communication like stickers, emoticons, audio and voice messages, pictures, video clips and basic location data. A spyphone monitoring app like FlexiSPY captures much more data than text alone, which you need if you want to understand what’s really said in those chats.

Here are the eight pieces of chat information you can send via Facebook:.

  • Contact Name
  • Contact Picture
  • Text
  • Images
  • Emoticons
  • Voice or Audio Message
  • Stickers
  • Location (place name only)

We used each of these in testing both Mobile Spy and FlexiSPY. In the screenshot Fig.2, you can see a conversation with some of the Facebook chat elements as displayed on the target phone itself.



How does FlexiSPY capture Facebook?


mobile spy screenshot

The FlexiSPY dashboard showed all chat and media elements that were shared in our conversations. The logs are also laid out in the familiar and readable style of alternating contacts on each side of the screen, the same way chats are displayed in the Facebook app itself.

FlexiSPY captured 6 of 8 possible Facebook chat and media types. This includes all text based conversation, contact name and profile picture, shared photos, audio and stickers.

Scoring 6 out of 8, FlexiSPY has proven to capture more Facebook chat data than any competing mobile monitoring app.


Important: Mobile Spy 6.6 Update!

Mobile Spy 6.6 introduced several monitoring features including IMs like Hangouts, Viber, Line and Kik. However, we tested version 6.6 multiple times during a period of several weeks, and all Mobile Spy IM services completely failed to capture anything.

A quick chat with Mobile Spy support confirmed it is indeed related to the current Mobile Spy version. We initially delayed this review hoping for a fix, but a month later there are still no changes. If you find any success with IM capture using Mobile Spy’ latest current version, please let us know so we can try again!


FlexiSPY vs Mobile Spy – The Facebook Bottom Line

As of today, Mobile Spy 6.6 still isn’t delivering any IM data for any of their advertised IM monitoring services. This includes any part of Facebook chat. There simply weren’t any Facebook logs ever reported to our Mobile Spy account. Support couldn’t resolve it and acknowledged issues with the current version.

This means Mobile Spy is currently a non-competitor for Facebook chat, while FlexiSPY captured virtually all but emoticons (Facebook doesn’t send GPS location, only general place names). If you want the most from your Facebook monitoring, FlexiSPY is the only reliable choice.

FlexiSPY also captures other popular IM services which are summarized in the table below and in the blog article here. These are compared in other articles from this series.


mobile spy screenshot