Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

netguard.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 142 posts

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

#101

Post by g-b-r »

t0bia_s wrote: post #100
g-b-r wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It drains battery because of VPN service solution It doesn't really, just try it (and take actual battery duration measurements, Android misreports VPN apps battery usages)

I did, battery drains 5-10% faster.

If it's so, it's not a lot for privacy and security

---

ReThink DNS uses the VPN service as well, by the way.

And it is possible to use two VPN apps, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41933464 (yes, the battery usage adds up).

Rethink DNS seems fine, anyhow.

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

#102

Post by achristmascarl »

After seeing the post[0] yesterday about how much surveillance can be done using mobile app data that can be bought online by pretty much anyone... I am very happy to learn about NetGuard today.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923931

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

#103

Post by lightdot »

miroljub wrote: post #87
thatloststudent wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need to dream about it, it already exists: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.celzero.bravedns/ I used to use it when I wasn't on grapheneOS and needed to block internet access.

It's annoying to see so much RethinkDNS propaganda on every Netguard or Invizible Pro thread on the internet. That gives me a bad feeling, and it's the reason I started to consider RethinkDNS scummy.

Was the above post propaganda? Or was it just a user recommendation?

Perhaps the reason it gets mentioned often is simply because it's a good piece of software. Then again, perhaps not!

In any case, I'd be careful about using 3rd party DNS (and other) services, but that's for the user to decide, depending on the situation one is in.

Using one's own resolver is always a good practice, even in countries where ISPs are not selling customer's private data to anyone that comes along and where governments don't monitor and repress their citizens on every step...

We live in strange times where even EU countries misuse resolvers to censor certain web pages, while, for example, independent Balkan countries do not. Go figure...

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

#104

Post by boneitis »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #48

Pcapdroid is a very good alternative that allows to see which connections are made from what app to what server and at what time. You just leave it in background, check one day later and see what sneaky app you never thought of have been sending tons of data in the background. For me it helped me remove and search alternative for 4 apps, including a pill reminder (mytherapy). I would never have thought the trade-off…

Thanks for chiming in; I will probably try this out in the near future and see what insights I can glean.

Kind of wish there was more discussion about solutions for rooted devices and how much unwanted traffic is already blocked by AdAway (in rooted mode).

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

#105

Post by alexashka »

qwertox wrote: post #38

Its' really telling that Google doesn't offer an API to access a firewall which provides a clear list of connections and the apps which create them and a way to prohibit such specific connections, possibly also according to blacklists. They really don't want users to have control over this.

It's more telling that governments haven't made it a mandatory feature on all devices with networking capabilities.

Google hasn't made a successful product in over a decade (nor have their existing products improved in any meaningful sense) - these people are not capable of anything besides hoarding power (and passing leet code I guess :P).

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

#106

Post by aucisson_masque »

g-b-r wrote: post #50
aucisson_masque wrote: post #48

Pcapdroid is a very good alternative that allows to see which connections are made from what app to what server and at what time. You just leave it in background, check one day later and see what sneaky app you never thought of have been sending tons of data in the background. For me it helped me remove and search alternative for 4 apps, including a pill reminder (mytherapy). I would never have thought the trade-off…

Except that... that doesn't block anything??

it can block, i think it's a 'donation' feature.

anyway, it's not the same as netguard. Pcapdroid helps to identify bad application that you can either remove, or if not possible, use netguard later on to block.

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

#107

Post by aucisson_masque »

octygen wrote: post #76
g-b-r wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that... that doesn't block anything??

Yeah, but you can just uninstall offenders

What about microsoft office ?

I want to be able to open word and excel file on my phone, but i don't want to give microsoft access to everything on my phone including dick pics, sextape, bank sheet and other personal data.

Because android allows such bad practice, blocking internet access can be usefull.

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

#108

Post by aucisson_masque »

baby_souffle wrote: post #97
aucisson_masque wrote: post #48

Pcapdroid is a very good alternative that allows to see which connections are made from what app to what server and at what time. You just leave it in background, check one day later and see what sneaky app you never thought of have been sending tons of data in the background. For me it helped me remove and search alternative for 4 apps, including a pill reminder (mytherapy). I would never have thought the trade-off…

> including a pill reminder (mytherapy) This is an app you wanted to replace? Or this is one of the apps that you found to be a good replacement? (I am also looking for a basic medication reminder/logging app)

no that's the rogue app.

i checked on the play store, all full of trackers. open source is great but always having issue, either it lacks functionalities or it's buggy.

at the end, i decided i could put a reminder on my phone and be done with that.

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

#109

Post by flanbiscuit »

saint_yossarian wrote: post #44
pmontra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Blockada for many years but that's a firewall against ads and trackers. No ads inside apps. Ideally I would use NetGuard to block the apps and Blockada to block ads and trackers for the apps that I allowed to perform network traffic in NetGuard. But Android allows only one active VPN and they can't be chained, so it's a hard choice. Actually it's not so hard: I keep blocking ads and trackers.

NetGuard does ad-blocking with a DNS blacklist, but it's a Pro feature (which I use and works great).

On NetGuard's F-Droid page it lists "Optionally block ads using a hosts file" under its "features" section and not under its "PRO Features" section

Seems like I can get ad blocking for free.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.netguard/

https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md

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

#110

Post by miroljub »

esperent wrote: post #98
trissi1996 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike most other dns providers, they often have an account or even payment to identify you, not just your outbound IP....

Do they keep logs though?

That's the whole point, you don't know if they keep logs.
Post reply on HN