←back to thread

713 points greenburger | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.225s | source
Show context
gear54rus ◴[] No.44289756[source]
Does anyone know what's the state of the art way for cutting crap out of android apps? In the same way adblock cuts crap out of web pages?

I assume one would need a Java disassembler at least. On desktop, something like recaf works and allows changing things in classes without the full recompilation.

Is there something like this for android?

replies(2): >>44290104 #>>44295758 #
hiccuphippo ◴[] No.44290104[source]
DNS blocking with tools like DNSNet get you halfway there without tampering with the apps. It installs itself like a VPN and filters dns requests to ad domains using lists from the same sources as the adblockers.

I say halfway because some apps have a fallback, built-in, ad when it can't reach the server, other serve the ads from their own servers so no way to block them. Most only leave a blank space.

replies(3): >>44290117 #>>44290655 #>>44296947 #
1. shizzor ◴[] No.44296947[source]
On Android there's also "Private DNS" where you can set a different server to resolve domain names. This way, you won't need to install and run additional apps and can still use VPN for ... well VPN.