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I'll reproduce my comment [0] here from a similar article earlier this year [1]. Note: I ended up setting up that pi-hole, and I see it blocking a ton of DNS l

I'll reproduce my comment [0] here from a similar article earlier this year [1]. Note: I ended up setting up that pi-hole, and I see it blocking a ton of DNS lookups for these types of companies across my family's devices. > I think many people would be surprised by the amount of analytics data leaving their phone _all the time_. I recently was doing some work where I had my iPhone proxied through mitmproxy on my laptop, and was blown away by just how much data was being sent. Some apps were sending a request to one or more analytics firms every single time I touched a UI control. I would set up a pi-hole and VPN to block this stuff, but I'm sure the app developers will just start tunneling the requests through their own hosts. Maybe some day one of these open source phones will actually be viable. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109243 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109243 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109027

StreamBright 7y ago
Same here, I also started to work on a project to consolidate pi-hole into a single binary using Rust. I want to run it on my laptop and on my routers at home as well.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
  Can you go into a little bit more detail about the reasoning behind this? I’m running a Pi-hole on raspberry pi as the single DNS server behind my whole home’s router. This means it blocks everything outbound in my house. Only thing it doesn’t block is when I’m on LTE/random WiFi access points, for which I’m considering routing all of my mobile devices via VPN through another instance of Pi-hole running on a digital ocean droplet. Beyond that what do running multiple instances of pi-hole do? Do you have multiple routers at home?
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    I travel a lot. I want to run something on my laptop so I do not need to VPN yet I have no ads.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
      That makes perfect sense. I'd like something similar especially if I'm overseas and don't want my requests going all the way to the USA and back and don't want to deal with the overhead of spinning up instances of my pi-hole in different countries. Do you have a link to the project?
      - StreamBright 7y ago
        It is private at the moment because not ready yet for prime time. You can reach out to me via email and I will add you to the repo. Use the email in my profile page please.
- icecube 7y ago
  Just download a Host file[1] and you can have system level ad blocking on your laptop. As for running an adblock on your router, if your router supports openwrt, openwrt has an adblock addon[2] that is easily configurable. Unfortunately, you will lose out on the statistics that Pi-hole collects. [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts [2] https://github.com/openwrt/packages/tree/master/net/adblock/files https://github.com/openwrt/packages/tree/master/net/adblock/...
RandallBrown 7y ago
If the app is made by a company that doesn't have its own analytics platform I would expect it's sending your information to at least 3 different sources. Smaller apps might not do it at all, or maybe just one, but anything that's been around long enough will inevitably have up to about 5 different analytics platforms. It's the thing I feel the "ickiest" about being an iOS developer. I've successfully fought against putting in stuff like Session Replay (and Apple has since banned it) so that makes me feel a tiny bit better.
prashnts 7y ago
I use DNS-Cloak on iOS to setup a local dns proxy as “vpn” which can do most things you mentioned. Might be relevant? https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1452162351 https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1452162351
somatic 7y ago
For an open-source phone to work, the devs will need to be paid. Open source as charity has run out of steam; to survive, open source must be profitable. The way to do it is to have a license under which all uses personal, educational, hobbyist, etc. are completely free and open source, but as soon as someone wants to sell something with your code in it, you get a cut. Not entirely unlike a transaction processor like Visa or MasterCard. It should be viral, so that all commercial software made with software under the license must also be licensed under the license, and the corporation’s commercial code must be available for inspection upon (legal?) inquiry, though the corporation may restrict the ability for others to use their code in other corporations’ commercial applications. Lock-in is achieved when it’s cheaper and easier for these freeloading corporate entities to pay up (the devs) than it is to try to rewrite everything.

StreamBright 7y ago

Same here, I also started to work on a project to consolidate pi-hole into a single binary using Rust. I want to run it on my laptop and on my routers at home as well.

SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
Can you go into a little bit more detail about the reasoning behind this? I’m running a Pi-hole on raspberry pi as the single DNS server behind my whole home’s router. This means it blocks everything outbound in my house. Only thing it doesn’t block is when I’m on LTE/random WiFi access points, for which I’m considering routing all of my mobile devices via VPN through another instance of Pi-hole running on a digital ocean droplet. Beyond that what do running multiple instances of pi-hole do? Do you have multiple routers at home?
- StreamBright 7y ago
  I travel a lot. I want to run something on my laptop so I do not need to VPN yet I have no ads.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
    That makes perfect sense. I'd like something similar especially if I'm overseas and don't want my requests going all the way to the USA and back and don't want to deal with the overhead of spinning up instances of my pi-hole in different countries. Do you have a link to the project?
    - StreamBright 7y ago
      It is private at the moment because not ready yet for prime time. You can reach out to me via email and I will add you to the repo. Use the email in my profile page please.
icecube 7y ago
Just download a Host file[1] and you can have system level ad blocking on your laptop. As for running an adblock on your router, if your router supports openwrt, openwrt has an adblock addon[2] that is easily configurable. Unfortunately, you will lose out on the statistics that Pi-hole collects. [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts [2] https://github.com/openwrt/packages/tree/master/net/adblock/files https://github.com/openwrt/packages/tree/master/net/adblock/...

RandallBrown 7y ago

If the app is made by a company that doesn't have its own analytics platform I would expect it's sending your information to at least 3 different sources. Smaller apps might not do it at all, or maybe just one, but anything that's been around long enough will inevitably have up to about 5 different analytics platforms. It's the thing I feel the "ickiest" about being an iOS developer. I've successfully fought against putting in stuff like Session Replay (and Apple has since banned it) so that makes me feel a tiny bit better.

prashnts 7y ago

I use DNS-Cloak on iOS to setup a local dns proxy as “vpn” which can do most things you mentioned. Might be relevant? https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1452162351 https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1452162351

somatic 7y ago

For an open-source phone to work, the devs will need to be paid. Open source as charity has run out of steam; to survive, open source must be profitable. The way to do it is to have a license under which all uses personal, educational, hobbyist, etc. are completely free and open source, but as soon as someone wants to sell something with your code in it, you get a cut. Not entirely unlike a transaction processor like Visa or MasterCard. It should be viral, so that all commercial software made with software under the license must also be licensed under the license, and the corporation’s commercial code must be available for inspection upon (legal?) inquiry, though the corporation may restrict the ability for others to use their code in other corporations’ commercial applications. Lock-in is achieved when it’s cheaper and easier for these freeloading corporate entities to pay up (the devs) than it is to try to rewrite everything.