Database Develop

Eink [NST] Optimizations (Apps, launchers, SetCPU...)

So there are a few threads of apps that plain work on the NST, but I want apps that are optimized (i.e. black and white/no animations/useable). Below are my findings.
Battery drain
First off, let's say you've rooted and installed some basics gapps. I found that some things seems to cause some pretty fierce battery drain (I remember on my G1 that calendar sync was buggy, resulting in constant syncing attempts and bad battery drain). Now this is on a per-user basis, but I basically removed everything but the core gapps files and gmail. Here's a list of stuff you can "safely" remove (remember, ALWAYS backup).
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Launchers
I've tried them all, but the ADW with the minimalistic black theme is the best IMO. You can make the background white of the app drawer, remove all but one page, and turn off everything that moves (I set all the options to max/0 to ensure that I do not see any animations of any sort).
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Navigation
So depending on how you achieved root, you may or may not have button savior installed. I didn't want extra stuff cluttering up my screen, so I removed it. For those of you who want a high contrast eink button savior, you've got it here. Buy the pro and support the dev. If you want to use the hardware buttons, you have to get this (which you may already have if you have rooted via Nooter).
I set the top left button as back, top right as menu, bottom left as pagedown, and bottom right as pageup. The page up and page down are from the normal left side, so they appear as LEFT_PAGEDOWN and LEFT_PAGERIGHT. I also disabled the BN menu when you press the N and made it just go to ADW.
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Apps
Sorry to disappoint, but since I want to get rid of as many distractions as possible, I only have a few:
Android PDF Reader: Has optimizations for eink devices, is quick to redraw, and page up and down work.
Sparse RSS: I've been working with the dev and have gotten page up/down to work. I have a dev build if interested, but I'm sure he'll publish an update soon with it working on the market (1.3.1 does not work, but the next version should have the fix).
Some of the other random eink optimized apps floating around the Apps section here.
SetCPU: Allows for changing the governor and you can underclock if you wish. I have to 600 MHz, and it's fine for reading. I setup the scale up preference to 80, and the Powersaving Bias to 300. Feel free to look up and mess around with these...it's pretty safe.
Coolreader: Has some nice eink optimized settings (can change how the page is partially refreshed/how often/etc. You can also set it as the main reader app in the NookSimple Tools apps, so when you click the book in the top left if opens Coolreader. The standard BN library and reader aren't bad, though (except for PDFs that are not meant for reflow, like tech. documents).
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Hi,
Here is a NST optimized (and slightly customized) version I did for Simon Tatham's Puzzles Collection (including source).
github.com/marspeople/sgtpuzzles/downloads
ace7196, could you post the "page up/down" patch for Sparse RSS? Also, I've noticed a interface bug (also present in NewsRob) when you go back to the article list, it loses which list position it was previously, that is pretty annoying.

Here's the latest release dev build of Sparse RSS.
I know the left side buttons for page up/down are mapped, not sure if he mapped the right side equivalent as well.
Also, I've noticed on a few rss readers (as mentioned above) that once you touch the screen and make is scroll, the titles of the articles change, but not that content. I only plan on using the hard keys, so now that I have an RSS reader that works with that...

What is the checkbox under Feed URL when you're adding a feed? Other than that, seems to work great!

Tired_ said:
What is the checkbox under Feed URL when you're adding a feed? Other than that, seems to work great!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure....try checking it

ace7196 said:
Not sure....try checking it
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Click to collapse
Installed it on my phone, turns out it's "Only Sync over Wifi". Kind of a useless setting for us Nookies, but it's good to know I guess.

Sparse RSS is really great though the right buttons are not mapped.
Also, is there a way to remove the "Goto link" bar at the bottom of each page?
It blocks the last line of text on every page. It is also kind of distracting and I will never need to go to the full page or use the onscreen touch buttons since the buttons are mapped

Got email from the author that right button support will be added, and will be published this week (will let you know when).

Latest Sparse RSS Reader with left and right button support:
http://code.google.com/p/sparserss/downloads/list

Launcher
too add...
I'm finding Relaunch as optimized launcher.
I'm happy with it, give it a spin.
(well you might need to spend some time in enabling adb to install non market apps)
I've attached the screens (not screenshots taken in nook, but a pic by phone)
the home, app list and the settings

marspeople said:
Here is a NST optimized (and slightly customized) version I did for Simon Tatham's Puzzles Collection (including source).
github.com/marspeople/sgtpuzzles/downloads
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone happen to have an APK kicking around for this eink optimized version of Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection that MarsPeople made so long ago? I've been using the regular version for years and just ignoring about half the puzzles since they require color. It would be great to have an eink version.
I contacted the author, but he doesn't have an APK anymore. He did point me to his other GitHub, which is still up and has his modified forkof the source, but no APK. I don't have any environment for building Android apps and I don't relish trying to set one up for Eclaire.
https://github.com/marcelogp/sgtpuzzles

Ad-free causes links not to work?

So I have ad-free installed and when I try to look at slickdeals links it always brings me to an error page? Is there a work around for this? I still want to be able to view the deals and links but just want all the banner ads gone.
HP Touchpad CM9

I liked the idea of adfree but for me it stopped some links working... so I uninstalled it (oops) - then I was stuck with the changes I had made. So I reinstalled it and clicked "revert" and that put everything back to normal.
I think some of the browsers - eg firefox - can get adkiller addons, don't know about dolphin etc.

Same here. I keep having to use the "revert" option to access the links and then re-installing the modified hosts file later. It's frustrating. I'd be happy to hear any better suggestions. (Dolphin user here)

chinkster said:
So I have ad-free installed and when I try to look at slickdeals links it always brings me to an error page? Is there a work around for this? I still want to be able to view the deals and links but just want all the banner ads gone.
HP Touchpad CM9
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am having the same problem, wish there was a fix or a quick temporary pause for adfree.

that's actually ad free doing its job, they are injecting all kinds of referral into your link

Ad blocker

Hi can anyone recommend a decent as blocker without root
Thanks in advance
Sent from my D5803 using XDA Free mobile app

bash156 said:
Hi can anyone recommend a decent as blocker without root
Thanks in advance
Sent from my D5803 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, you can use Adblock Plus, but many don't like it (me included) as it has its issues.
I'm running without one except for browsing, I use the paid version of Lightning, it blocks ads very efficiently and is a very good browser, too.
For all else I'm waiting for root

Thanks for the reply. I did try adblock plus was giving me problems too I'll give lightning a go
Sent from my D5803 using XDA Free mobile app

i hate ads on mobile devices, but chromes compression proxy works very fine. it almost lower my data 1/3 when browsing. so external proxys for ad block is no solution.
if you want good ad blocker, that creates hosts file, you need root.

Adblock edge on firefox is nice too. Firefox for android is surprisingly fast.

try UC browser

Now browser material pro, specifically that version as well since theres various versions of now browser. Look for ad block on the app description to be sure.
Also Javelin browser. It loads pages in the background in a widget overlay that appears as a dot on the screen. I find that annoying and it can be turned off in the settings. I have a reference number to gift it to two people so first 2 to grab it can have it: http://javelinbrowser.com/gift/4Osgq/
The first browser runs much lighter on the battery but it's been quite some time since I ran Javelin and it may have been improved since then.
Both of these browsers have been featured in xda if I remember correctly. Both, I think, need ad blocking enabled in settings. I just checked Javelin and I think it is the case for Now Browser as well; used to be part of the first run set up.

bilboa1 said:
Adblock edge on firefox is nice too. Firefox for android is surprisingly fast.
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Wh00t? Firefox has to be the slowest laggiest browser on the platform. My experience.
UC HD is the best overall atm IMHO.

PantsDownJedi said:
Now browser material pro, specifically that version as well since theres various versions of now browser. Look for ad block on the app description to be sure.
Also Javelin browser. It loads pages in the background in a widget overlay that appears as a dot on the screen. I find that annoying and it can be turned off in the settings. I have a reference number to gift it to two people so first 2 to grab it can have it: http://javelinbrowser.com/gift/4Osgq/
The first browser runs much lighter on the battery but it's been quite some time since I ran Javelin and it may have been improved since then.
Both of these browsers have been featured in xda if I remember correctly. Both, I think, need ad blocking enabled in settings. I just checked Javelin and I think it is the case for Now Browser as well; used to be part of the first run set up.
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Click to collapse
I got it one , lets c how it goes ,
Sent from my D5803 using XDA Free mobile app

I've been using Naked Browser all the way back to my Nexus S days. It has a great adblock built in, and it's very quick.

in my opinion adblock doesn't work without root successfully.
only with root and adaway i am happy.

dreas74 said:
in my opinion adblock doesn't work without root successfully.
only with root and adaway i am happy.
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Hi,
I'm seriously tempted by the Z5 compact (I have a Nexus 5 ATM), but I'd want root access mainly to use an ad-blocker (my preference is AdAway) - is this possible on the Z5?
I didn't think root could be achieved without some serious compromises?
Thanks for any info

Let me tell you about my config.
I think it keeps most of the bad guys out.
- Firefox with Add-ons
- Blu hell firewall - the desirable lightness of Bluhell balances with good performance
- Clean links - cleans & resolves URLs that have been shortened or proxied
- Self-destructing cookies - protects against trackers and zombie-cookies
- HTTPS-everywhere - what's in a name
- DuckDuck Go - the search engine that doesn't track you
Try it, you'll like it.

Adguard
No root, almost perfection.
Theres no other adblock thats as good. Adaway as we know is root only and leaves big gaps where the ad should have been.
Adguard does not.
The only annoying thing is persistent notification.

I use Dolphin browser and an Adblock addon it is great

CAF Chromium Browser has built in Ad Blocker, ist basend on Chromium and optimized for Snapdragon Prozessors.
It's really fast and Ab Blocker is working great.

NetGuard supports ad blocking since 0.77
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3233012

[Q] This webpage is not available... ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

Hello everyone,
I've had a Nexus 6 for about a month now and I'm running into this same problem, whether it be an email link or a link on Twitter:
I keep getting a "This webpage is not available... ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED" page upon clicking various links.
This seems to be happening more and more lately. I know the odds of every single one of these links being down or broken are slim to none.
At first I thought it could be my AdAware software wreaking havoc on the link itself, and thus shutting me down from viewing it. But after uninstalling the AdAware, I'm still getting these down webpages. So that rules out the AdAware aspect.
I seem to get these A LOT on Twitter. Someone will post a link, whether it be a website, video, picture, etc..... and I click the link and I get this same message.
I should also mention I bought my Mom a 64GB unlocked Nexus 6 from Amazon (same place where I got mine), I unlocked it, rooted it and we're both running stock 5.0.1 for the time being, until I throw 5.1 stock on ours for the voice and data simultaneous capabilities.
Any help with this matter would be appreciated, as I'm at my witts end regarding why these damn links keep saying unavailable.
I should mention, the latest link was from a job site called ziprecruiter.com, care of monster.com job postings. She tried to open one of the job links in her GMail and it gives her the screenshot I posted. I tried every job link and the same result. However, when I open the job links via a web browser on my MacBook, each link works perfectly. I also included the details screenshot of the webpage.
Thanks everyone!

Anyone?

It's your modified hosts file. Reinstall adaware and use the restore hosts file option. If you want to keep using adaware, you can also add the sites being blocked to your white lists in adaware so that it will not add them to your hosts file. It's blocking referral and redirecting links most likely.

mwalt2 said:
It's your modified hosts file. Reinstall adaware and use the restore hosts file option. If you want to keep using adaware, you can also add the sites being blocked to your white lists in adaware so that it will not add them to your hosts file. It's blocking referral and redirecting links most likely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much, I'll try this out

try adfree instead http://adfree.bigtincan.com/adfree.apk

mwalt2 said:
It's your modified hosts file. Reinstall adaware and use the restore hosts file option. If you want to keep using adaware, you can also add the sites being blocked to your white lists in adaware so that it will not add them to your hosts file. It's blocking referral and redirecting links most likely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried doing what you said, but was unable to get it to work.
Any tips on this?
I'm still getting this same error page on my Nexus 6, as well as my Mom.
I can't for the life of me figure out how to get this to go away.
Her problem is with random emails from websites she shops at, such as fanatics.com
She'll open the email on her phone, click one of the sales items and that damn page shows up every time. I uninstalled Ad Away and rebooted, and it's still having the same problem.
If you or anyone else could PLEASE help me out with this, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks-

MVLJR said:
I tried doing what you said, but was unable to get it to work.
Any tips on this?
I'm still getting this same error page on my Nexus 6, as well as my Mom.
I can't for the life of me figure out how to get this to go away.
Her problem is with random emails from websites she shops at, such as fanatics.com
She'll open the email on her phone, click one of the sales items and that damn page shows up every time. I uninstalled Ad Away and rebooted, and it's still having the same problem.
If you or anyone else could PLEASE help me out with this, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried clearing the browsers cache in /settings/apps/ or clearing the cache in recovery, that may help. No problem for me to open this site, btw stock not rooted.

mwalt2 said:
It's your modified hosts file. Reinstall adaware and use the restore hosts file option. If you want to keep using adaware, you can also add the sites being blocked to your white lists in adaware so that it will not add them to your hosts file. It's blocking referral and redirecting links most likely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
gee2012 said:
Have you tried clearing the browsers cache in /settings/apps/ or clearing the cache in recovery, that may help. No problem for me to open this site, btw stock not rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply.
I FINALLY figured it out.
Had to reset the hosts file via the app and then reboot immediately. For some reason I didn't reboot before and the host files didn't go back to stock.
Even if you uninstall Ad Aware, the host files remain unchanged and thus the problem persists.
I reverted back to stock host files for now and the links are working.
I have to learn how to add sites to the whitelist in order to attain full functionality of Ad Aware.

That is very common with Twitter and the ad blocker as mentioned. I get it every time. But it is some safety feature seeing the modified hosts file. For me it isn't that it is blocked...just hitting refresh fixes it, every time for me.

TonikJDK said:
That is very common with Twitter and the ad blocker as mentioned. I get it every time. But it is some safety feature seeing the modified hosts file. For me it isn't that it is blocked...just hitting refresh fixes it, every time for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you talking about refreshing via the Ad Away app itself, or the twitter link itself?
I can't get certain Twitter links to work, unless I shut off my Ad Away and go back to default host files.

Adaway rocks. Have never had a problem.

MVLJR said:
Are you talking about refreshing via the Ad Away app itself, or the twitter link itself?
I can't get certain Twitter links to work, unless I shut off my Ad Away and go back to default host files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use Tweetcaster, which launches 'Readability' for its external links....It's a scaled down browser that ripps out ads and pics. I hit refresh in it and its good....or I can hit Readability's menu and open in browser and its good.
So that tells me Ad Away is blocking the original Twitter URL, then Readability refreshes using the real target URL. I will dig into this, should be any easy whitelist ro add.

TonikJDK said:
I use Tweetcaster, which launches 'Readability' for its external links....It's a scaled down browser that ripps out ads and pics. I hit refresh in it and its good....or I can hit Readability's menu and open in browser and its good.
So that tells me Ad Away is blocking the original Twitter URL, then Readability refreshes using the real target URL. I will dig into this, should be any easy whitelist ro add.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info.
Maybe I'll give Tweetcaster another try, it just wasn't as easy on the eyes for me vs regular Twitter app.
If I could only figure out this whitelist thing, I could put this all behind me.
I have my original host files in tact right now and and everything is working, but I'm not blocking ads.

EMUI update notification sent me to potential malware site

Hello!
I'm afraid my phone might have malware. Hopefully it's a false alarm but I would appreciate any insight into the behavior:
Yesterday I saw a notification with the EMUI icon (stylized red "UI") but when bringing up the notification panel all I saw was a green "down" arrow and no text. I've had apps with bugs creating broken notifications before so I tapped it to check. It sent me to a webpage flagged as a source of malware "d1.3gmimo.com/handpet/wallpaper/...<can't remember rest>". I closed the page and since Chrome showed the warning before loading the page I think it's safe to assume I didn't download anything.
I don't know the origin of the notification though so I'm afraid there might be some malware already present. It had the EMUI icon but that can be faked or may be the default when no icon is configured (not sure how it works).. The notification appeared over mobile data so no router redirect infection. Searches gave me only one hit I could make sense of - a forum thread with the poster describing a similar event. They got not explanation but see here for their screenshots: Google Translate on thread-5858387-1-1.html on club.huawei.com (can't post links yet it seems)
I am very careful with the apps I install, avoid all the copycat crap, and I only allow Google Play as a source. The phone was only ever used by me except briefly by a family member which I trust not to download anything sketchy. Still, I uninstalled the most recent 2 apps: Hashi and Nonogram Katana (has ads) , though these had been installed a week before. The list of installed apps shows nothing new/strange. I also installed AVL, Bitdefender, and Avast but they found nothing. (I know it's debated whether av/anti-malware apps are helpful but thought to cover everything.)
Any thoughts?
Thank you in advance!
Phone details:
Huawei P7-L10
Android 4.4.2
EMUI 2.3 (V100R001C02B129)
Branded by Vodafone and with their uninstallable apps - using it on different network though.
I know I should update but the update app doesn't find anything (I understand this may be due to modifications made by telecom companies) and I got lazy since I've had no compatibility issues. I guess I should think more about security.

After doing more digging and learning to use adb to look at the logcat, I think the notification might have been created by VLife, which is Huawei's wallpaper distribution service.
On my phone I have VLife 2.23.3 installed (seems to be stock) as a system app. The title is in Chinese but the icon is the EMUI logo. (I figured out which app it is by the icon and version number, after I found the app hosted on aptoide.com while googling for "vlife".)
I presume what happened is that VLife tried to download a new wallpaper (no idea why all of a sudden) and it went to 3gmimo.com, which might serve as a mirror for apps. The site is flagged as having malware. This might be a false alarm or the site might have been hijacked since my version of VLife came out.
So the app might be ok. Though I'm still worried why the sudden update. Maybe there's a central message that was sent to the app to update? (The logcat below mentions a receiver.) The only suspicious thing about the app otherwise is that it has the permission to record sound along with changing sound settings. The latter isn't so surprising since it provides multimedia wallpapers. Maybe recording comes with the rest of the sound permissions. I've disabled the app and disabled its notifications for now. It can't be uninstalled since it's a system app.
These lines come up quite often in my logcat:
I/am_proc_start( 604): [0,18761,10089,com.vlife.huawei.wallpaper:main,broadcast,com.vlife.huawei.wallpaper/com.vlife.receiver.PetMainReceiver] - the link I got referred to a "handpet"
I/am_proc_start( 604): [0,18907,10089,com.vlife.huawei.wallpaper:main,broadcast,com.vlife.huawei.wallpaper/com.vlife.receiver.InstallEventReceiver]
Does anybody know more about this app or service?
Thanks!