🆕 Software Suggestion | TrackerControl

[ashwinvis]

Basic Information

Name: TrackerControl
Category: Android Privacy Add-ons
URL: https://trackercontrol.org/ | https://hcc.cs.ox.ac.uk/projects/#TrackerControl

Description

TrackerControl allows users to monitor and control the widespread, ongoing, hidden data collection in mobile apps about user behaviour (‘tracking’).

Why I am making the suggestion

It builts on top of NetGuard by adding host list based blocking to the traffic. Also it gives more insight into what trackers are present in installed apps.

My connection with the software

Early adopter.

• I will keep the issue up-to-date if something I have said changes or I remember a connection with the software.

[lrq3000]

Source code (GPL-v3.0): https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android

[youdontneedtoknow22]

This definitely needs to be added instead of Netguard.
For some apps, I just need the Internet connection and I don't like enabling and deactivating it all the time. With TC, it blocks connections from all apps to Facebook, Amazon and so on. For the browser, you can allow this connection.
Another good point is, it shows you the traffic log (only for paid version on Netguard). This had showed me which apps do spy on me and call facebook, really popular Apps that I didn't expect them to do so.

[ph00lt0]

This app connects to ipinfo.io. See: app/src/main/java/eu/faircode/netguard/Util.java:598.

https://ipinfo.io/privacy-policy I consider this a tracker. It is used to get the organization from the IP addres, maybe this can be disabled somewhere in the app, if so we should add a warning.

[ph00lt0]

The company also offers services like this one: https://ipinfo.io/products/proxy-vpn-detection-api
Really something you should want to avoid imo.

[ph00lt0]

Actually Netguard seems to have this in the FAQ https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-content-faq55 It is however unclear to me what setting would deactivate this behavior.

[lrq3000]

@kasnder would you like to provide some insights on how to disable connections to Amazon / ipinfo.io / 216.239.34.21 ? Me too, I could not find the option to do that.

[kasnder]

This app connects to ipinfo.io. See: app/src/main/java/eu/faircode/netguard/Util.java:598.

https://ipinfo.io/privacy-policy I consider this a tracker. It is used to get the organization from the IP addres, maybe this can be disabled somewhere in the app, if so we should add a warning.

This should not be enabled by default, and does not affect core functionality of the app, only the "Traffic Log" (if you enable "show organisation" from the menu).

But thanks for raising this. I'll consider removing this in a future update, because it's not necessary.

[kasnder]

I've now added a warning dialog prior to enabling this, see https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android/issues/232

It's part of the latest release: https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android/releases/tag/2021072301

[ph00lt0]

@kasnder awesome! That will do.