Which one is recommended? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Are there better alternatives?
Links:
- Philo ( @Philo@lemmy.ml ) English2•1 year ago
TrackerControl is a ripoff of NetGuard.
Does NetGuard show me the same information TrackerControl does and vice versa?
- Philo ( @Philo@lemmy.ml ) English1•1 year ago
Not exactly. TC added the ability to block trackers. NG can easily do that by using a hosts file. I used to use the file by OSID but the Hagezi files https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists#readme Are much better.
AdGaurd and NextDNS are DNS providers. Your phone would send DNS queries to those sites and respond with the IP to use. They have built in blocklists you can use, which can be used to block ads and known malicious sites and such.
TrackerControl is an application you can install, that monitors HTTP requests that apps make by using the Android VPN slot. It tries to categorize them and allow and block them, and you can customize what’s allowed and blocks.
It looks like ReThink is a combination of the two, it seems to provide a cloud DNS service like NextDNS and AdGuard with a partner application that’s like TrackerControl.I use a combination of NextDNS and TrackerControl. NextDNS blocks most of my DNS requests, and TrackerControl covers anything else that’s missed by aggressively blocking by default.
Well, i don’t know the answer. But i think you need to provide more info here about what you’re trying to do here… Do you want an adblocker? Something to suppress trackers? Something that prevents your TV to send telemetry home to its manufacturer? Something so your ISP can’t see which sites you visit? Do you want an android app? Something you can install on your home router or raspberry pi? Just a plain DNS service for your windows network settings?
Mostly I try to secure my Android phone. I know that I cannot have a VPN and a firewall running at the same time (why Googla hasn’t gotten that right yet is beyond me). Hopefully Rethink will do this at some point. No ads and tracking protection are a must. Android allows to set a private DNS natively, so an app is not a must, but if it offers an advantage I will do it (e.g. NetGuard + Private DNS or just Rethink).
You can get some of this with a pi hole/vpn setup. There’s actually a really nice one you can get as a droplet (basically a virtual machine) on Digital Ocean.
https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/pi-hole-vpn
Once it’s up and running it can be a full tunnel vpn or just a dns solution (also over a split tunnel vpn).
Might not give the full tracking protection exactly but will kill most ads.
Alright. ‘pi hole’ is something i tried. and ‘adguard home’. But this doesn’t really fulfill the requirements if you want something for your android phone.
i think installing adguard-home dns, a firewall and vpn endpoint on a v-server and then connecting with your phone to the vpn would solve all issues. including firewall and dns at the same time (because then it runs on your server). but you’d invent and maintain a whole privacy service yourself.
if you don’t want all of that, you’re probably better off using an existing service or app.