Do you use additional protection apps?

General Discussion
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Hello iodé community!

I am a brand new user of this OS and loving it so far.

I’m a premium member for iodé, partly to unlock the extra features of the inbuilt blocker and partly to support such excellent work, but I have a question for long-time users: do you use additional protection apps with iodé?

Before iodé I ran a few apps on my various devices to enhance protection. On some I ran Tracker Control, which as I understand it is basically doing the same job as the iodé blocker. On others I ran NetGuard to act as a complete firewall for certain apps.

Do you run any third-party privacy/security apps with iodé (and, if so, which), or is the inbuilt blocker enough for you?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts, I’m I’m very happy to now be part of this community.

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No. I came to IodéOS from LineageOS for microG, I’m quite happy with the level of ‘protection’ in both L4M and IodeOS. In IodéOS I turn off blocking for any apps that have problems when blocking is enabled.

I guess I worry less about tracking than many users of IodéOS (and other 'privacy-respecting` ROMs:

  • I mostly try to use FOSS apps from F-Droid, but OK with using proprietary / closed apps from Aurora Store if there is no FOSS app that does what I need;
  • I’m OK with using e.g. Google Maps without logging in to a Google account;
  • also OK with using WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger apps, because that’s what family and friends use, and my phone is a tool for communicating

Using ROMs like IodéOS and L4M, you are already much better ‘protected’ than people using stock Android or LineageOS with GApps

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There are cases that I use Mullvad VPN, such as public WiFi networks, accessing blocked sites (thanks UK government), anything where I may need to hide my identity for whatever reason. But most of the time I keep it off.
I don’t use the Iode browser as Firefox on Android, is quite frankly, awful. I use Cromite and it has a serviceable ad blocker that works well 9/10 times. Combines with adblocking DNS, it works well

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The inbuilt blocker with the default settings is not enough for me, but it should be a lot better than nothing at all. I previously subscribed to iode premium, so I could customize it, but not anymore. Instead, I use NextDNS to block trackers both on mobile and on desktop with only a single account.

Also I don’t use the default browser for my browsing most of the time. I use monocles browser because it has javascript disabled by default (which is a very good way to protect yourself against web tracking), while effectively lets control whether you’d want to enable or disable JS for any site you like. I also use VPN to mask my IP from random sites out there. I take privacy seriously.

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