Truecaller Review: True Blocking Power In Your Hands

Truecaller would be the first app most of us think of when we want to identify unknown numbers or callers. The app itself is very powerful in number recognition and individual identification, but before you get to installing right away on your smartphone, check out our review first.

What Is Truecaller?

Truecaller is an app for smartphones that will show you who’s calling when they call, even if the person isn’t in your phone’s contact list. What the app is able to provide is information of callers who are not in your contacts like marketers or spam callers. It also has the ability to block unwanted calls such as the above, allowing you to be interrupted less, or not interrupted at all.

The Truecaller app is available on both Android and iOS platforms, and it will require an active Internet connection (Wi-Fi or mobile data) to work.

Setting Up

To set Truecaller up, just head on over to your respective app store and download the Truecaller app. Launch the app and follow the on-screen instructions to login, and start using the app. You can create an account by using either your Facebook or Google account. Once you’re logged in, you’re ready to start using the app.

User Experience

At its core, Truecaller works as an immensely powerful caller ID app. It lets you know who’s calling, and where they’re calling from (like a company, and not actual location). Even if a “Private Number” called you, Truecaller has the ability to unlock that invisible wall, saving you from annoying commercial insurance calls.

Truecaller identifies these unwanted spam callers and telemarketers, but it doesn’t stop there. Turn on the feature, and Truecaller can immediately block and reject the call as soon as it comes in. The app already has a database of telemarketers and spam callers within your region, but you can build your own blocklist to add to the existing spam list.

So what happens when you’ve blocked a number using Truecaller? Well, on the calling end, they will hear the busy tone, while you will hear nothing at all. You even have the option of choosing whether you want to be notified of their calls, or not at all.

Apart from that, Truecaller also lets you search for any name or number. Just key in the number or name you’re searching for, and the app will show you information like name, carrier network, and sometimes even a profile picture. Let’s say you’ve found the person you’re looking for, you would still need to send a request via Truecaller to ask for permission in obtaining the person’s number. This is how the app is addressing privacy concerns, which we’ll get into more detail later.

What About The Bad Stuff?

Ads, really. The app is free to use, so it does a few ads here and there while you’re using the app. The other thing about Truecaller is its privacy concerns. When you’re installing the app, it takes your permission (part of the agreement prior to using the app) to access your contact list, and use that data to build their database. This is called crowdsourcing where they gather information from all Truecaller’s users’ phones and use algorithms and AI to identify patterns and number relevance.

However, Truecaller claims that these contacts are not searchable by users. But once you’ve agreed to Truecaller’s terms and conditions, you’ve basically given away the privacy of all the contacts in your own smartphone’s contact list. Technically, your number may also already be in Truecaller’s database if you have a friend who has your number in their contact list, and they’ve started using Truecaller.

There are two school of thoughts to go about this. One, your number might already be in Truecaller’s database, so why not put that to your advantage and give more power to your smartphone to ease your daily life? The other way to think about this is, is to remove yourself from the system, unlist your details, and stop using the app entirely.

Yes, Truecaller does offer users the ability to unlist yourself from the app and its database. Once unlisted within 24 hours, people won’t be able to see your name, number or profile information when they’re searching in the Truecaller directory. To do this, you need to fill in the form on the Unlist Phone Number page, and this will require you to stop using the app and deactivating your account.

Pricing And Availability

Essentially, the app is free with ads and limited features. But there are premium services available and here are the benefits and prices:

To be honest, I think the Gold plan is totally unnecessary if you’re an average consumer, and the Premium plan will do just fine. RM50 a year to block out all these annoying insurance calls? Yes, please. But if you’re in the corporate world and you’re working with a lot of high-profile individuals, then the Gold plan might make more sense.

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Conclusion

Truecaller is a very powerful caller ID app and it will save you a lot of time by blocking all those unnecessary or unwanted spam calls during your day. However, it does come with a sort of “sacrifice”, where you and your contact list’ information will be kept in Truecaller’s database. As mentioned before, you can take advantage of this system, having name and number search, caller identification and blocking. Or, you can choose to remove yourself from it entirely, the choice is entirely up to you.

If you’re interested in giving it a shot, you can get the app for free from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.