Database Develop

Ad sponsered free apps increasing, Any type of firewall?

Well been doing alot of study lately and it seems ALOT of apps on the market that are full versions and are "free" seem to have ad sponsored elements in them. Sending your GPS data to whoever or other various things. Now while if the dev mentions on the description that their "Paid" version is ad free. Least its up front and honest about it. However alot of Apps I found out hide this info it seems. Is this going to be the new "Kazaa" on the G1? Back when Kazaa came out, is when the influx of "Spyware" was increasing. Im worried is this happening to the G1 now? While I can understand devs choosing this to make their app free and gain from it a lil. Whats to say other devs wont use this for other intentions that may have some negative impact?
Just wondering tho.. for modded G1s. Is there some sorta firewall app or so yet that might be useful? Anyways just thought I would post for discussion case I am worried over nothing.

Install AdFree from the Market.

Cool ill try that. Still tho some discussion would be good. Cause I don't know if this should be something to start getting concerned on. Apps running in background draining battery, and reporting info possibly and so. Or am I getting concerned over nothing?

Mysticales said:
Cool ill try that. Still tho some discussion would be good. Cause I don't know if this should be something to start getting concerned on. Apps running in background draining battery, and reporting info possibly and so. Or am I getting concerned over nothing?
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A little paranoia is a healthy thing, too much is bad, but these ads collect all sorts of location information to profile you and provide relevent advertising, but who knows what else happens with the data etc etc etc
PS you need root access on your phone to use AdFree

Yea Im fully rooted, No worries there. =) Thanks for this heads up. I use host files as well on my PC.. since then never had a issue with spyware again. Any news on if he would let us update the host file ourselves? Id love to use the file I have on my PC. Heh.
Anyways as for discussion goes. Can these ads know your G1 email, or linked email account? Next off, is there a ability that these ads could read your personal data as text msgs, contacts (to spam phone calls) or anything like that? Android being a new OS.. not sure what devs and ads can do with access to a phone. Its like a new gateway has been opened.
Kinda wish a dev could comment if the G1 would even have this ability and if it could be a bad thing.
Edit: Good question, this Ad Free, is it like if you add a hosts file in a router? Like if I use the G1 to tether, is it blocking the ad banners even on tethered connections? Would be interesting to know for sure since imagine a built in firewall that protects tethered PCs too.

Mysticales said:
Yea Im fully rooted, No worries there. =) Thanks for this heads up. I use host files as well on my PC.. since then never had a issue with spyware again. Any news on if he would let us update the host file ourselves? Id love to use the file I have on my PC. Heh.
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You can use your own hosts file on your own phone, AdFree just automates the process, if you look at this thread it started off describing how to do things manually.
Anyways as for discussion goes. Can these ads know your G1 email, or linked email account?
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Possibly, I haven't looked into accessing the google credentials from the android APIs so I don't know for certain, might be a private API google only shares with it's own apps, that doesn't mean someone won't figure out how to access them however.
Next off, is there a ability that these ads could read your personal data as text msgs, contacts (to spam phone calls) or anything like that? Android being a new OS..
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When you install an app there is a screen displayed of the permissions the apps ask for, read/write contacts, calendars etc will all be displayed, you should be able to see the permissions an app will have access to after it's installed as well from memory.
not sure what devs and ads can do with access to a phone. Its like a new gateway has been opened.
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You should be more worried what google will do with all the info it collects to be honest, but that's another issue altogether.
Kinda wish a dev could comment if the G1 would even have this ability and if it could be a bad thing.
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You are prompted during install as to what the app will be able to access, google leaves it up to you to accept it or not.
Edit: Good question, this Ad Free, is it like if you add a hosts file in a router? Like if I use the G1 to tether, is it blocking the ad banners even on tethered connections? Would be interesting to know for sure since imagine a built in firewall that protects tethered PCs too.
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Depends how the tethered setup gets DNS info, if it uses the information from the hosts file then yes, but this is dependent on what the tether setup does.

Mysticales said:
Its like a new gateway has been opened.
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Only if you never bothered reading the permissions requests when installing an app. They clearly describe what permissions an app wants to use and you can cancel the installation if you feel you don't want to give an app the right to access your personal info. So if you install a game that says it wants access to your Google Account info (which would include your email and thus all your associated google services) then you have only yourself to blame if the dev sends you a ton of spam or sells your email address.
Bottom line is read the permissions requested carefully and decide whether you trust the company/entity that created the app before installing it. Also, i'd be very wary installing any root apps, since root apps by their very nature can operate outside of dalvik sandbox and do practically anything they want to your system. I'm only running two root apps right now: Market Enabler and Wifi Tether. They are both open source.

Well of course I read the permissions thing. However still I would still wonder about things.

Mysticales said:
Well of course I read the permissions thing. However still I would still wonder about things.
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Google actually closed up some of the loop holes that apps were using on Android 1.0/1.1 to enable wifi etc.

jashsu said:
They are both open source.
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Unless you audit the code and compile it yourself, you have no idea what the binary is actually doing.

Location data is only used for serving the right banners and calculate the profits the banner view/click has depending on the location (country) of the viewer.
Its not anything malicious and you can easily see the permissions when installing.
People all like free apps instead of paying a few dollars, but when an ad is added people try to get rid of it... Havent you all ever wondered why the ads are there? Just like on a forum as the one you are on right now? Right they generate at least a little bit of money for a dev that doesnt want to charge the users directly by letting them pay, but spends almost all his free time to keep apps updated, write new once and answering questions.
As soon as there is virtually no way too make money on a market, the market will die as developers/companies will move over to an other platform of development.

delta_foxtrot2 said:
Unless you audit the code and compile it yourself, you have no idea what the binary is actually doing.
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It's not difficult to get the code from svn and compile it. Pretty effortless.

rogro82 said:
As soon as there is virtually no way too make money on a market, the market will die as developers/companies will move over to an other platform of development.
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Many people don't like to view ads on their computers, let alone their mobile phone. Thus if people can block the ads easily, they will. Content producers and software developers will simply have to find a new business model to pursue. Maybe that's a free/premium differentiation model or maybe its microtransactions. That or they will have to deal with a percentage of their userbase blocking ads.

Well I am sure most devs Block ads too, either on their mobile or pc.. no one wants any type of issue.
Now again, I said I understand why they are there for free apps. Its just that as a user myself.. I like to know Im protected from potential hazards. Also alot of devs like to make something hot to use on later resumes and projects. Ive worked with alot of devs in my time start with nothing and grow to get bigger jobs in RL cause of the project. =)

jashsu said:
It's not difficult to get the code from svn and compile it. Pretty effortless.
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I didn't say it was hard to get or compile it, but auditing the code to make sure nothing malicious is going on can be very difficult at times. There is a code obfustication competition each year and it's extrodinary what some can do and you'd never know unless it was pointed out to you.

Mysticales said:
Well I am sure most devs Block ads too, either on their mobile or pc.. no one wants any type of issue.
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It's not just "issues" too many ads tick a certain segment of the population off to the point that they go to these lengths to get rid of them.
This is of course before you factor in this segment of the population are usually the least to click on ads, usually for ethical/moral reasons, so them getting rid of ads is usually no big loss.
Last time I checked AdFree was downloaded less than 5,000 times, now compare this to a speedometer app I made which anyone can run and it's been downloaded over 10,000 times I highly doubt any dev relying on ads will actually loose out by the people that can and are blocking them.

rogro82 said:
Location data is only used for serving the right banners and calculate the profits the banner view/click has depending on the location (country) of the viewer.
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The meta data that can be gleened from this sort of advertising can have all sorts of flow on effects and unintended consequences.
I see the world and potential pitfalls in things differently than others, I don't know why, but the more data collected the worst things can be.
If you are interested in what country they are from/in just pull the country code from the SIM card, why narrow it down to within a few metres?

Well since I have been using Adfree. Let me say this. My G1 seems to be running faster! I dont get as many force close/wait errors. Certain apps like atrackdog for one RUN faster. I mean without the ads running, it seems my apps speed through their task and do what they are supposed to. Kinda interesting note oddly.
Also lets say a app you know would be using GPS to locate you on a map. Thus triggering "Give app permission to use your GPS" which you know why it needs it. But does the app also tell you that it uses the GPS for Ads? So I dont always trust what it says when it comes to permissions as it doesnt mean in the underline that its not using the same permission to do other things. Would be nice if the G1 had a notice that the app uses Ad support.

Linux is a wonderful and powerful operating system that can do just about anything you can possibly dream of.
First, the hosts file hack is a piece of crap since all it does is it points potentially malicious domain names back to self. It doesn't take into account connections that are ip address based... those will still go through and there is nothing that can be put in the hosts file to stop that.
iptables on the other hand.... included in 1.0 and 1.1, and several custom 1.5's, can do many strong things; block by ip address (including if it tries to lookup by dns), block by port, *BLOCK BY USER ID*.
The latter is particularly interesting since each program installed on android is assigned its own userid. That means that with the correct iptables rule, you can block all network traffic for THAT PARTICULAR PROGRAM. Or you can blacklist/whitelist servers for that program, etc.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/block...ingle-user-from-my-server-using-iptables.html
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux...ng-access-to-selectedspecific-ip-address.html
For example, when I issue this command:
iptables -A OUTPUT -o tiwlan0 -m owner --uid-owner 10017 -j DROP
My browser is no longer able to connect (since it is uid=10017) using wifi (tiwlan0 is wifi). Note: leave out the entire "-o tiwlan0" argument and it should block all outgoing on all devices for that userid.
To find the userid for a particular program, do "ls -l /data/data/program'sdatadirectory"

So on JF 1.51 is this ability already there? Yea I know Linux is great for iptables. Always is, even in routers hehe.
If its not in there already, Debian, how well does that work on the G1?

adblock adaway type of apps for non rooted note 3?

Any suggestions for ad block or as a way type of apps for our phones that don't require root ?

gunnnnzzz said:
Any suggestions for ad block or as a way type of apps for our phones that don't require root ?
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I've looked myself and have found nothing to replace th one two. Though some browsers such as UC browser have built in ad blockers. UC does a decent job of catching a lot of the ads.

gunnnnzzz said:
Any suggestions for ad block or as a way type of apps for our phones that don't require root ?
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Techweed said:
I've looked myself and have found nothing to replace th one two. Though some browsers such as UC browser have built in ad blockers. UC does a decent job of catching a lot of the ads.
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Go to adblockplus.org on your phone and download that apk. You can create new apn settings if you plug in the adblock proxy on it. You will also have to configure the proxy on any WiFi network you connect to.

How To Remove Ads With No Root?

Good day!
As stated on the title, how can I remove ads in my Huawei P10 without rooting my phone? I know Adawy or Adguard can do the trick if you're rooted, but how if I'm not?
Is there a way we can do this via ADB shell command? I don't want to use DNS66 or any VPN that will eat my battery or RAM usage. I hope someone can answer this query. And I hope this is possible.
Thanks!

Hi.
As far as I know, there is no way to prevent ads from your phone without root.
Greets

I'm using blokada. It's just like dns66 and the others.
It's just open source, heavily developed and does not eat all my battery or resources.
blokada.org

I prefer Adguard on non-rooted devices. It's basically internal firewall and the reason it shows any battery usage is because its heading all the data through this firewall - but it's not really consuming much of the power. As a matter of fact it usually prolongs battery life if properly set up. Works like a charm with EMUI 5.1 tiles.
The pro version could cost just about 12$ for lifetime if purchased made in RUB. Strongly recommend to try a free trial.

Thanks for your feedback guys. I will consider your suggestions.

bauer18 said:
Good day!
As stated on the title, how can I remove ads in my Huawei P10 without rooting my phone? I know Adawy or Adguard can do the trick if you're rooted, but how if I'm not?
Is there a way we can do this via ADB shell command? I don't want to use DNS66 or any VPN that will eat my battery or RAM usage. I hope someone can answer this query. And I hope this is possible.
Thanks!
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I recommend using Adguard DNS servers.. I'm pretty happy with it. Doesn't remove everything, but helps a lot.
-> https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html

snydersdoc said:
I recommend using Adguard DNS servers.. I'm pretty happy with it. Doesn't remove everything, but helps a lot.
-> https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html
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Thanks for this suggestion but this only works when you are connected to WiFi since you can modify your WiFi settings. But, how about if you're using your mobile data connection? I can't see any option where I can add Adguard DNS servers in mobile data settings. Any recommendations without using a third party app like DNS changer?

The only way to block ads without root is via a VPN - but most of those, including the ones mentioned above mean you have to rely on a 3rd party having access to all your traffic.
I'm using NetGuard and this uses the local VPN on the phone without an external server (unless you want to include one) - its by the same dev who wrote the amazing Xposed module called Xprivacy:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/app-netguard-root-firewall-t3233012

I think there is another way doing this. Is there anyway to mount /etc/ on computer, probably using adb?
If that is available as option, could generate hosts file using adaway no rooted device and copy manually file.
Could that be possible on locked device?
P10 Android 8 VTRL-29 8.0.0.360(C432)

Adhell

Has anyone been able to successfully run Adhell Adhell 2 on Note 8? Like actually having it block ads? I installed Adhell2 but it doesn't install ads. It sucks but this is one of the main reasons I liked Galaxy phones.

mehdi_s82 said:
Has anyone been able to successfully run Adhell Adhell 2 on Note 8? Like actually having it block ads? I installed Adhell2 but it doesn't install ads. It sucks but this is one of the main reasons I liked Galaxy phones.
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It's not compatible yet, We have to wait for the developers to update it. It causes restarts and other issues.

I use DNS66 and added the two OpenDNS free servers to it. it works perfectly. Haven't seen an ad yet when using Chrome Canary! They also seem to have cut down on YouTube ads as well. Which is saying something because YouTube LOVES to put ads in most of their videos.. :laugh:

I think ad block plus is working for me. Haven't had any issues with it yet

MACHEK said:
I think ad block plus is working for me. Haven't had any issues with it yet
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It doesn't work for Chrome

rawintellect said:
I use DNS66 and added the two OpenDNS free servers to it. it works perfectly. Haven't seen an ad yet when using Chrome Canary! They also seem to have cut down on YouTube ads as well. Which is saying something because YouTube LOVES to put ads in most of their videos.. :laugh:
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Didn't work for me. Ads still showing in Chrome. Did you do anything else other than adding OpenDNS servers?

mehdi_s82 said:
Didn't work for me. Ads still showing in Chrome. Did you do anything else other than adding OpenDNS servers?
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I did add two custom host files but that shouldn't matter. I turned them off and it's still blocking ads. I do use Chrome Canary though which is different than the stock Chrome that comes with our phones. It's an alpha release and is ALWAYS updated just about every day. Sometimes it crashes because the devs are trying new things but they usually fix it within a day. Until they fix it I then run Chrome beta. I never use stock Chrome.
As for the setup? All you have to do is make sure the host files that came with DNS66 are updated before you start the task. Click the "reload button" in the upper right hand corner then wait...once they are updated then press start. Here are screenshots of a web site I go to called "Project Free TV" It's HEAVY on ads. You can see what it looks like with DNS66 on and with it off. It's DEFINITELY working.
P.S. Make sure you add it to the ignore list or "white list" of apps NOT to kill if you're using a task killer like Advance Task Manager or Greenify.

I'm using BlockThis 3.0. It's like adguard and uses a VPN. The only downside is that stupid key icon. It's free and blocks ads well. The others are hit and miss and seem to be selectively blocking ads which is annoying to say the least. Now if they stopped youtube ads...
This is not on the play store but easily found.

cpufrost said:
I'm using BlockThis 3.0. It's like adguard and uses a VPN. The only downside is that stupid key icon. It's free and blocks ads well. The others are hit and miss and seem to be selectively blocking ads which is annoying to say the least. Now if they stopped youtube ads...
This is not on the play store but easily found.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm loathe to use any VPN tool that is not open source. You never know what traffic from your phone is sent to what server. Also VPNs in general take a toll on battery. I really hope Adhell can be fixed for Note 8

mehdi_s82 said:
I'm loathe to use any VPN tool that is not open source. You never know what traffic from your phone is sent to what server. Also VPNs in general take a toll on battery. I really hope Adhell can be fixed for Note 8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's done locally, so there are no risks to your privacy. VPN is a little more battery hungry compared to DNS blocking, but Adguard doesn't leave empty blocks everywhere like other adblockers do.

EP2008 said:
It's done locally, so there are no risks to your privacy. VPN is a little more battery hungry compared to DNS blocking, but Adguard doesn't leave empty blocks everywhere like other adblockers do.
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I know the vpn server is technically done locally but basically the app has access to ALL of the network traffic to/from your phone so it can do whatever with it and unless it's open source, I personally am not comfortable.

This is a good read. Might help someone out.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8/themes/adhell-2-rootless-ad-blocking-t3663559
Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Having same issues with Disconnect Pro it causes lag, slow Internet and restarts
Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

cpufrost said:
I'm using BlockThis 3.0. It's like adguard and uses a VPN. The only downside is that stupid key icon. It's free and blocks ads well. The others are hit and miss and seem to be selectively blocking ads which is annoying to say the least. Now if they stopped youtube ads...
This is not on the play store but easily found.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup I second this. BlockThis 3.0 has been working great so far with no issues for me.

I use Blokada, it blocks 99% of ads without root. I've installed it on all my employees phones too and they all love it. It's internal VPN based and open source.

_MetalHead_ said:
I use Blokada, it blocks 99% of ads without root. I've installed it on all my employees phones too and they all love it. It's internal VPN based and open source.
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Awesome! Just tried it and it works flawlessly. The only downside is the persistent vpn key icon

mehdi_s82 said:
Awesome! Just tried it and it works flawlessly. The only downside is the persistent vpn key icon
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I actually like having that notification. I find comfort in it lol

Any update on Adhell? i'd rather not use a VPN.

Mr.Ash.Man said:
Any update on Adhell? i'd rather not use a VPN.
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https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8/themes/adhell-2-rootless-ad-blocking-t3663559/page10
There's the last page of the thread. Right now the dev is busy with life but is still trying to develop a working Ad Hell 2 for the Note 8. It looks like it is working for some but there is a reboot issue.

I've had Adhell 2 working on my Note 8 for over a week now, no reboots either..
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8/themes/adhell-2-rootless-ad-blocking-t3663559

any chnace to use adaway host Lists without root ?

Hey there,
my P20 pro runs without root, but i want to use Adaway host lists.
is there any chance to use this list via adb or something else ?
if there are a way, please give me a tutorial or explain this .
thx and greetz

Adguard? You have to buy a licence to block ads completely throughout the device but it works really well.

hackdrag0n said:
Adguard? You have to buy a licence to block ads completely throughout the device but it works really well.
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this runs only with yandex and Samsung Browser, but not with Chrome?!
and i dont want to buy a licence.
Greetz

AndsXDA said:
this runs only with yandex and Samsung Browser, but not with Chrome?!
Greetz
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Click to collapse
If you buy a licence it blocks ads in just about every app, including chrome.

https://blokada.org