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NetGuard – rootless Android outbound per-app OSS firewall, like LittleSnitch

netguard.me

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Re: NetGuard – rootless Android outbound per-app OSS firewall, like LittleSnitch

#3
From the developer of FairEmail.

Every once in a while I consider making the switch to KeePassXC. I trust KeePassXC but I don't really trust the mobile apps so last time around I looked into NetGuard. It's really nice but it wasn't a good fit for my use case:

> NetGuard will do its best, but it is limited by the fact it must use the Android VPN service. This is the trade-off required to make a firewall which does not require root access. The firewall can only start when Android "allows" it to start, so it will not offer protection during early boot-up (although you can disable your network before rebooting). Also, the Android VPN service needs to be restarted to apply new rules when connectivity has changed or when the screen is being turned on or off. It will, however, be much better than nothing.

I believe that also means you can't use it with Tailscale or similar.

Re: NetGuard – rootless Android outbound per-app OSS firewall, like LittleSnitch

#4

From the developer of FairEmail. Every once in a while I consider making the switch to KeePassXC. I trust KeePassXC but I don't really trust the mobile apps so last time around I looked into NetGuard. It's really nice but it wasn't a good fit for my use case: > NetGuard will do its best, but it is limited by the fact it must use the Android VPN service. This is the trade-off required to make a firewall which does not…

> better than nothing

Is "nothing" the only Android per-app outbound firewall alternative to NetGuard?

Re: NetGuard – rootless Android outbound per-app OSS firewall, like LittleSnitch

#6

Similar but open source: https://github.com/celzero/rethink-app

> similar but open source

Netguard (per HN title) is open-source GPLv3: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard

Rethink uses cloud services by default?

  The [DNS] resolver is deployed to Fly.io at max.rethinkdns.com 
  and Deno Deploy at rdns.deno.dev too, 
  apart from the default deployment on Cloudflare Workers.

Re: NetGuard – rootless Android outbound per-app OSS firewall, like LittleSnitch

#7

From the developer of FairEmail. Every once in a while I consider making the switch to KeePassXC. I trust KeePassXC but I don't really trust the mobile apps so last time around I looked into NetGuard. It's really nice but it wasn't a good fit for my use case: > NetGuard will do its best, but it is limited by the fact it must use the Android VPN service. This is the trade-off required to make a firewall which does not…

> better than nothing Is "nothing" the only Android per-app outbound firewall alternative to NetGuard?

No, if you have a rooted phone you can use AFWall+. And there are other non-root firewalls.

Re: NetGuard – rootless Android outbound per-app OSS firewall, like LittleSnitch

#9

Similar but open source: https://github.com/celzero/rethink-app

> similar but open source Netguard (per HN title) is open-source GPLv3: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard Rethink uses cloud services by default? The [DNS] resolver is deployed to Fly.io at max.rethinkdns.com and Deno Deploy at rdns.deno.dev too, apart from the default deployment on Cloudflare Workers.

Right, I saw their pro features listed and skipped over the oss mention.

Yes rethink uses public fly resolver by default but you can self host that as well. Apologies, that's something I should have mentioned.

https://github.com/serverless-dns/serverless-dns

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