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I wouldn’t touch Android with a 10ft pole - none of that open source stuff means anything when no human in earth has the time/money/competency to audit it. I h

I wouldn’t touch Android with a 10ft pole - none of that open source stuff means anything when no human in earth has the time/money/competency to audit it. I highly recommend an ad blocking VPN so rest of the apps hitting G ad network are blocked as well.

walterbell 9y ago
What's a good ad-blocking VPN?
- yumraj 9y ago
  pi-hole, with openvpn. self-hosted. DigitalOcean has great guides, which work with any linux vps.
  - haydenmk2 9y ago
    this kills the battery though
    - walterbell 9y ago
      I wonder why. Storage disk encryption does not, neither does SSL. Why are VPNs using much more power on mobile?
      - joecool1029 9y ago
        >Why are VPNs using much more power on mobile? It can leave connection open which prevents many cellular radio technologies from falling into lower power state. Really depends on how optimized the cell modem is and how often keepalive packets are being sent by the VPN. Honestly, I haven't seen too much of a battery hit on ipsec VPN on the iphone SE. However, my older android phones used to get shredded on OpenVPN. EDIT: If anyone's asking, I use the algo.sh script to deploy ipsec vpn on digitalocean (has option to enable adblocking too) https://github.com/trailofbits/algo https://github.com/trailofbits/algo.
        ce4 9y ago
        Wireguard should alleviate exactly that. It's designed to not use persistent connections, keepalives may have to be enabled in case of nat traversals though (to enable incoming packets). https://www.wireguard.com/quickstart/ https://www.wireguard.com/quickstart/
    - yumraj 9y ago
      Does it? I've been using it on and off, on Android. I have set it to disconnect when screen is off. The impact on battery does not seem to be drastic, though it is difficult to do real side by side comparison. Another option is to only use it on demand, while browsing. Is there any other option?
- nyolfen 9y ago
  on ios, the ($3) app 'adblock' is a local vpn with domain-based adblocking rules -- in practice it's essentially an adblock hosts file, and doesn't take nearly as much battery
- eropple 9y ago
  I find Block This! to be pretty good on my Android devices. It's not actually a VPN--it's a fake VPN that just runs a host filter and dumps ad traffic. They have a build on the web; I compiled my own off of their source, though, so can't vouch for that.
- ce4 9y ago
  On Android it's DNS66 [2] or NetGuard [1] (only the github version has hosts based blocking) for me. Both are open source and act as a fake vpn to intercept traffic locally on your device. No Cloud service needed. [1] https://www.netguard.me/ https://www.netguard.me/ [2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/
Spooky23 9y ago
Why do you trust the ad blocking vpn more than google?
- madez 9y ago
  Googles explicit goal is to collect data about you to make money with advertizing. It works so well, Google even gives you stuff for free so you stay with them. A privacy oriented VPN providers explicit goal is to give you some privacy, and you pay them for it. Sure, a VPN can turn on you, but then they bite the hand that feeds them. Also, it would contradict what they explicitly say, completely unlike the situation with Google. A Debian developer might also try to bring a backdoored package to your machine. Is therefore trusting Debian and trusting Apple the same? They are not, as Debians structure is transparent, the developers carry individual responsibility not just towards the Debian project, but towards every body that can see it, i.e. the whole world. The theoretical possibility of multiple things being equally bad is irrelevant as long as other significant aspects are ignored.
- innagadadavida 9y ago
  Yeah it’s hard problem. Honestly, The small ad blocking company can sell you out to G too (as one of them did in the past). I use Adblock VPN on iOS - it also has a dns proxy.
SEJeff 9y ago
Like pi hole? https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net + a vpn
bitmapbrother 9y ago
What makes you think Android isn't audited besides insufficient knowledge on the subject? Wouldn't you think that the most popular OS in the world that has the top security researchers and companies combing through its source code trying to find vulnerabilities for over a decade would classify as being somewhat audited? I find it odd that you would not "touch Android with a 10ft pole" yet have no problem touching an OS that you, or a security researcher, can't audit the source code of. Security through obscurity doesn't work and your pole can't really help you when it bites you and it will.

walterbell 9y ago

What's a good ad-blocking VPN?

yumraj 9y ago
pi-hole, with openvpn. self-hosted. DigitalOcean has great guides, which work with any linux vps.
- haydenmk2 9y ago
  this kills the battery though
  - walterbell 9y ago
    I wonder why. Storage disk encryption does not, neither does SSL. Why are VPNs using much more power on mobile?
    - joecool1029 9y ago
      >Why are VPNs using much more power on mobile? It can leave connection open which prevents many cellular radio technologies from falling into lower power state. Really depends on how optimized the cell modem is and how often keepalive packets are being sent by the VPN. Honestly, I haven't seen too much of a battery hit on ipsec VPN on the iphone SE. However, my older android phones used to get shredded on OpenVPN. EDIT: If anyone's asking, I use the algo.sh script to deploy ipsec vpn on digitalocean (has option to enable adblocking too) https://github.com/trailofbits/algo https://github.com/trailofbits/algo.
      - ce4 9y ago
        Wireguard should alleviate exactly that. It's designed to not use persistent connections, keepalives may have to be enabled in case of nat traversals though (to enable incoming packets). https://www.wireguard.com/quickstart/ https://www.wireguard.com/quickstart/
  - yumraj 9y ago
    Does it? I've been using it on and off, on Android. I have set it to disconnect when screen is off. The impact on battery does not seem to be drastic, though it is difficult to do real side by side comparison. Another option is to only use it on demand, while browsing. Is there any other option?
nyolfen 9y ago
on ios, the ($3) app 'adblock' is a local vpn with domain-based adblocking rules -- in practice it's essentially an adblock hosts file, and doesn't take nearly as much battery
eropple 9y ago
I find Block This! to be pretty good on my Android devices. It's not actually a VPN--it's a fake VPN that just runs a host filter and dumps ad traffic. They have a build on the web; I compiled my own off of their source, though, so can't vouch for that.
ce4 9y ago
On Android it's DNS66 [2] or NetGuard [1] (only the github version has hosts based blocking) for me. Both are open source and act as a fake vpn to intercept traffic locally on your device. No Cloud service needed. [1] https://www.netguard.me/ https://www.netguard.me/ [2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/

Spooky23 9y ago

Why do you trust the ad blocking vpn more than google?

madez 9y ago
Googles explicit goal is to collect data about you to make money with advertizing. It works so well, Google even gives you stuff for free so you stay with them. A privacy oriented VPN providers explicit goal is to give you some privacy, and you pay them for it. Sure, a VPN can turn on you, but then they bite the hand that feeds them. Also, it would contradict what they explicitly say, completely unlike the situation with Google. A Debian developer might also try to bring a backdoored package to your machine. Is therefore trusting Debian and trusting Apple the same? They are not, as Debians structure is transparent, the developers carry individual responsibility not just towards the Debian project, but towards every body that can see it, i.e. the whole world. The theoretical possibility of multiple things being equally bad is irrelevant as long as other significant aspects are ignored.
innagadadavida 9y ago
Yeah it’s hard problem. Honestly, The small ad blocking company can sell you out to G too (as one of them did in the past). I use Adblock VPN on iOS - it also has a dns proxy.

SEJeff 9y ago

Like pi hole? https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net + a vpn

bitmapbrother 9y ago

What makes you think Android isn't audited besides insufficient knowledge on the subject? Wouldn't you think that the most popular OS in the world that has the top security researchers and companies combing through its source code trying to find vulnerabilities for over a decade would classify as being somewhat audited? I find it odd that you would not "touch Android with a 10ft pole" yet have no problem touching an OS that you, or a security researcher, can't audit the source code of. Security through obscurity doesn't work and your pole can't really help you when it bites you and it will.