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0 pointsBeetleB2mo ago0 comments

> Root your damn phone!

I did for many years, and finally gave up. With recent Androids, life in the rooted world is much more difficult:

Netflix automatically drops to a lower quality tier.

Many apps now just refuse to work on a rooted phone.

But the worst thing: If I want to update the ROM to get the latest security benefits, I have to wipe my data.

Surprised you didn't mention something like PiHole.

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mmh00002mo ago

PiHole is fine, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of it personally because:

  - It's local network only, and while I can VPN home, I don't always want to
  - It has a high maintenance overhead, at least for me. It would block too much, then my wife would complain, and I'd have to spend time figuring out the magic rule that was breaking.
  - It's DNS-level blocking only, which is helpful but doesn't cover nearly as much ground as just uBlock can. 
  - The DNS server has annoying preconfigured caching rules, that, while I can work around, it was just more effort for something I don't want to put more effort into.

It's far easier to just install uBlock and tell my wife, if something breaks, just click the red shield icon, then click the giant power button.

BeetleBOP2mo ago

But doesn't uBlock only block stuff via the browser?

I want to block ads from most apps.

mmh00002mo ago

A hosts file will do the same as pihole, but locally.

Buttttt, this goes back to my original post. DO NOT INSTALL MALWARE.

Because that's my first rule, I don't use apps with ads.

Generally, if I can't do a thing from a standard website, I probably don't need to be doing it. Otherwise, I have nothing against paying for a good app. For example, I LOVE AutoSleep.

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0 pointsBeetleB2mo ago0 comments

> Root your damn phone!

I did for many years, and finally gave up. With recent Androids, life in the rooted world is much more difficult:

Netflix automatically drops to a lower quality tier.

Many apps now just refuse to work on a rooted phone.

But the worst thing: If I want to update the ROM to get the latest security benefits, I have to wipe my data.

Surprised you didn't mention something like PiHole.

0 comments

mmh00002mo ago

PiHole is fine, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of it personally because:

  - It's local network only, and while I can VPN home, I don't always want to
  - It has a high maintenance overhead, at least for me. It would block too much, then my wife would complain, and I'd have to spend time figuring out the magic rule that was breaking.
  - It's DNS-level blocking only, which is helpful but doesn't cover nearly as much ground as just uBlock can. 
  - The DNS server has annoying preconfigured caching rules, that, while I can work around, it was just more effort for something I don't want to put more effort into.

It's far easier to just install uBlock and tell my wife, if something breaks, just click the red shield icon, then click the giant power button.

BeetleBOP2mo ago

But doesn't uBlock only block stuff via the browser?

I want to block ads from most apps.

mmh00002mo ago

A hosts file will do the same as pihole, but locally.

Buttttt, this goes back to my original post. DO NOT INSTALL MALWARE.

Because that's my first rule, I don't use apps with ads.

Generally, if I can't do a thing from a standard website, I probably don't need to be doing it. Otherwise, I have nothing against paying for a good app. For example, I LOVE AutoSleep.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse