About advertisement blocking on Android

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

I can confirm that ad-blocking is a difficult thing on Android. Maybe you won't need root forever, only for installing Magisk and from there any change is system-less, i.e., without writing to /system.

Edit: Split from Eddie Android 2.3 beta 2 released. Use to discuss ad-blocking in general and Magisk/AdAway combination in specific.

Edited ... by giganerd
Split

[KenAV 5]

6 hours ago, giganerd said:

I can confirm that ad-blocking is a difficult thing on Android. Maybe you won't need root forever, only for installing Magisk and from there any change is system-less, i.e., without writing to /system.

Thanks for the reference to Magisk.  I looked it up and it is worth further investigation.  (I'm used to SuperSU but evidently Magisk is more up-to-date and has other advantages.)

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

5 hours ago, KenAV said:

I looked it up and it is worth further investigation.

Please for the love of it always refer to the official XDA thread about Magisk! There are millions of copycats who design fancy-looking websites and claim they are the official Magisk website. Magisk does not have a website! Their downloads are malicious! Root is mighty and can turn your phone from average to super-freedom but also to super-spyware.
 

5 hours ago, KenAV said:

I'm used to SuperSU but evidently Magisk is more up-to-date and has other advantages.

Magisk is much more. It's actually the modern replacement for old-school rooting apps and the famous XPosed Framework. App developers with the help of Google nowadays have more options to detect root and disallow usage of their apps if they so desire. It's very easy: You can for example simply check for /system/sbin/su. A phone with original firmware from the manufacturer does not have that binary, so anyone with it obviously had write permissions to /system at some point. SuperSU for example, but also such old apps as Framaroot, are doing this.
On the contrary, Magisk does not do that. It still must write to /system to make at least some libraries accessible to the system, but anything else happens in RAM.

[Maggie144 12]

I'm struggling with the same dilemma. Since NetGuard, a root-less Firewall + custom Host file for ad-blocking uses a custom VPN Tunnel, and Android does not support chaining VPNs, I thought of following solution for my future Android:

Install NetGuard, then all other necessary apps to configure FW-rules.
push a custom host file (EnergizedProtection + Entries from FW-ruleset) via (temporary) adb root.
Use Eddie forth on.

Never owned any smartphone to this date, so constructive criticism/tip is warmly welcomed.

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

7 hours ago, Maggie144 said:

Never owned any smartphone to this date, so constructive criticism/tip is warmly welcomed.

I would really stick to Magisk and not experiment with such apps. Magisk comes with a built-in Systemless Hosts module and using that, a more or less classical ad blocker based on the hosts file and sane hosts file sources we can build a very simple but effective solution to this problem. Eddie is usable with it, you don't run additional apps in the background and you don't waste battery by keeping said apps active in the background, especially if VpnService is used.

1. Root your phone with Magisk. Refer to the above link, and only to the above link, for downloads and a few instructions. You will need to reboot your phone.
2. Install AdAway and disable all preinstalled hosts file sources.
3. Go to StevenBlack's GitHub page. In that repository a number of hosts files from other sources, including the preinstalled in AdAway, are consolidated and categorized into five categories: adware&malware (referred to as "unified hosts"), fakenews, gambling, porn and social.
4. Many of these can be combined. Scroll down to the List of all hosts file variants table. Choose one and click on the respective Non-GitHub mirror links in the last column. Note that AdAway cannot properly parse the GitHub Raw links, so don't use these.
5. We are only interested in the link. If you're on your smartphone on which you installed AdAway, copy the URL and add it to AdAway's list of sources. Otherwise, copy it manually or send it somehow to the right phone, I'm sure you know what to do :D
6. Click "Apply and Update Sources" in the app. If you want, you can also click on "Start Web Server" which will then simply reply to all requests to blocked domains. Some apps show built-in ads when they can't reach ad servers. By replying with a 200 OK the apps might be tricked into "thinking" an ad was successfully served when in reality there is none.

To not let this drift too much from the original topic, you may open a separate thread or ask me personally via message here or on XMPP.

[KenAV 5]

As the OP, I'm very interested in this topic (it's about accomplishing the original goal that stimulated the idea for the thread).

Where would I start a new thread?

BTW, while there is definitely "fake news", the phrase is now used by everyone on both sides of every discussion, so I don't see how a "fake news blocker" could work.   For example, I went to the web site of one of the best chocolate bar makers, and they also had information on "chem trails".  It's possible to convince just about anyone of anything - it is ONLY a matter of how persuasively you write.

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

9 minutes ago, KenAV said:

BTW, while there is definitely "fake news", the phrase is now used by everyone on both sides of every discussion, so I don't see how a "fake news blocker" could work.   For example, I went to the web site of one of the best chocolate bar makers, and they also had information on "chem trails".  It's possible to convince just about anyone of anything - it is ONLY a matter of how persuasively you write.

You're free to explore the fakenews list in the repo to see what is deemed fakenews.
 

10 minutes ago, KenAV said:

Where would I start a new thread?

Off-topic would be best.

[KenAV 5]

21 minutes ago, giganerd said:

Off-topic would be best.

As a mod, can you take all the posts after "Staff" and move them to a thread in "Off-topic"?  Thanks.

BTW, while there is clearly an objective to way to say that everything from a particular IP address is "advertisements", there is no objective way to say that an IP address is a source of "fake news", because objectively determining "fakeness" requires examining each article individually.  It doesn't even help to block Russian Bot sites, because other people read those posts and then repeat them, making it a content problem rather than a source problem.

[Maggie144 12]

Thanks for your detailed reply giganerd. I'll go with the systemless host file

[KenAV 5]

On 6/29/2019 at 1:40 PM, giganerd said:

I would really stick to Magisk and not experiment with such apps. Magisk comes with a built-in Systemless Hosts module and using that, a more or less classical ad blocker based on the hosts file and sane hosts file sources we can build a very simple but effective solution to this problem.

Okay, I read some of the Magisk info on XDA (yes, I do only use XDA for any phone modification information).

The whole thing is 10X more complicated than Root a few years ago.  As always, the XDA discussions are by and for people whose main hobby is modifying their phone (as opposed to using it).  Nothing wrong with that, but there is some hours of learning new terminology just to get started.

As various other people are saying in various threads on various Forums, rooting is no longer worth bothering with, because you can do just about everything without rooting.