The iodé blocker already has good features and looks very well done! Nevertheless I have some wishes and questions:
What does “to” mean (see screenshot)?
What is the reason that the user apps
F-Droid
Gallery
Geometric Weather
Contacts
Pdf Viewer Plus
Phone
are not displayed in iodé blocker, even though they are allowed to access the internet by default in iodéOS (see Android settings under Apps)? I think it is very important that ALL user apps are in iodé blocker.
Note: The list of apps may be incomplete as I did not install a few iodé apps during the initial setup.
None of the system apps are displayed in iodé blocker. However, if you want to implement a strict whitelist principle, this is necessary. Will the “Show system apps” option be integrated into iodé?
Allow/deny internet access with the possibility to apply the whitelist principle would be very welcome. That is, you can deny Internet access generally for everything and allow it only for selected user apps and selected system apps. Or even always deny it to all apps and only allow selected domains in general or per app. Will the “allow/deny internet access” feature be integrated into iodé?
Furthermore the option “notify on internet access” would be very helpful. This would make it easier to identify dependencies of apps to their helper apps in particular. Will this be integrated into iodé?
I know that the iodé team is always busy making new features for the blocker. I hope the points I noticed now, are already on your to-do list or coming now.
Apps appear in the list when they effectively communicate through the network, in the concerned period of time (day, 7 last days, since installation). If you are sure that an app has communicated through the network but it does not appear in the list, that’s a bug.
Some system apps already appear (e.g. intent verification filter plus all preinstalled apps), but many do not appear indeed. They are filtered through the “Standard” black list though. We don’t want to flood the app list though, so we plan to make them all appear into a single aggregate app called something like “Android System”.
This is an interesting idea, we will think about it. We are however working on a new feature, to block network access depending on the network interface (wifi, mobile data, vpn), as well as defining default blocking state for newly installed apps. This is a bit redundant with android settings, but more powerful: it will be for example possible to allow blocking wifi and mobile data while still allowing vpn, regardless of the way the vpn is connected (wifi, …).
The whitelist principle for domain filtering could also be explored, we have to think about that.
We plan to integrate more the blocker in the overall user experience, to better interact with it. We will probably display some real-time data, and internet access may be one of them.
That sounds good! I will follow this up accordingly.
I can understand that the app list should not become confusing. However, in order to be able to control the system apps individually, I still think it is necessary to list them all separately. This could be solved by displaying the system apps in a separate list. You either look at the list with the clearly arranged user apps or the list with the system apps. You could perhaps use a switch to toggle between user apps and system apps. Maybe that would be a viable solution?
(By user apps I mean all apps that are displayed in the Android settings under Apps->All Apps. By system apps I mean the ones that are only visible there when you enable “Show system apps”).
That’s basically what I meant. You would just have to additionally make a switch “Block network access on/off” in the options.
If “Block network access off” is selected, the black list mode is active and only the apps that are checked under wifi, mobile data, vpn are blocked for the Internet.
If “Block network access on” is selected, the white list mode is active and only the apps that are checked under wifi, mobile data, vpn are allowed to access the Internet. Alternatively, no app can be checked in this mode and only individual domains (for example, via the existing “stream” item) are allowed to access the Internet.
Hey guys, I recently installed iodéOS on my phone and I am quite happy so far. Still, I got some questions about how the blocker works, would be great if someone knows how to answer them
Is there a possibility to search for particular domains within all categories of recipients (dots of all colours at once) of a single app in a given time frame? And for all apps at once, too? Maybe even with wildcards/RegEx?
For some recipients of apps, I sometimes see the notion „anonymous domains“. Can you please explain what exactly it does mean and why it is labeled like that?
When being on a self-defined private DNS (dnsforge.de) instead of the default one (automatic), the blocker displays the blocked/allowed recipients but also that (little) data has been sent for some apps I tested (for example ToGoodToGo), although these apps do not have network access at all (I disabled it via the system settings). When being on the default private DNS, the blocker still displays the blocked/allowed recipients but it doesn’t say that any data has been transmitted). So i was wondering whether this is a just a bug in the blocker or if the self-defined DNS circumvents somehow the system settings? By the way, whose DNS service is chosen when „automatic“ is activated?
Inside the iodé app, the world map indicates the GB I used. What I don’t understand is the fact that I am pretty sure it’s more than the number of GB indicated there…
Will it be possible to deactivate background wifi usage, as is already possible for mobile data (for each app / systemwide)?
there is a filter search bar on the report tab for apps and domains. If you want all domains in a single view, you can have this in the customized blocking’s tab.
If a request to a hostname is redirected to a different IP than what has been resolved for that domain, then the network trafic is registered under “anonymous domains”
even if the network blocking is activated, we still show in the app the requests they are trying to make to domains. We decided to show it because it can be interesting to monitor an app’s dns activity while still blocking the traffic, but it can be confusing
do you mean the map doesn’t count correctly the data sent in your opinion?
It confused me indeed in the beginning but now i think it’s interesting to see it. But the problem is that (maybe) data is sent even when all connectivity is shut down via the system settings (not via the blocker) for the app in question. I will show you:
On top, everything is fine, but below there seems to be a problem.
So I am wondering whether data has in fact been sent to some domains (which would mean that the system settings are being circumvented) or if the blocker displays some amout of data which in fact hasn’t been sent?
PS: I tried it with other apps/custom DNS providers as well and it is the same result.
Yes, i think the map does not display the amount of data correctly. I compared it to the number of GB displayed in the system settings and it was much higher. I don’t know if the number of GB in the system settings is correct but I am sure that the one in the map of the blocker is definitely too small. Maybe the data passed through VPN is not counted?
Nevertheless I have some wishes and questions:
You would just have to additionally make a switch “Block network access on/off” in the options.