Blocking connections on Android

Privacy ·

I have been a user of NetGuard for quite some time. It is a great Android app that lets you control which apps get Internet access and which don't. The paid version will allow you to block connection on a per-domain basis (for each app), as well as let you see all the domains an app connects to (which are normally a lot!). Furthermore, you will be able to block domains for the whole phone. This is useful because it can act as an add blocker (by default it uses the list of domains gathered in this repository). The Google Play version doesn't have this feature because Google doesn't allow add blocking on the store, so make sure you get the app directly from GitHub!

A couple of months ago I decided to use a VPN, it felt like ISP's where very public about everyone's data, and I decided to put my trust in a company whose business is protecting their customers' privacy. The problem with VPNs is that you have to trust them. There is no way for you to ensure they aren't selling your browsing habits to the best bidder, but I did my research on the provider I chose and I trust them a lot more than an ISP. Now you may ask, how is this related to NetGuard? Well, NetGuard uses the VPN functionality on Android to be able to block certain connections without root access, and Android only allows one VPN at a time, so I had to choose one1.

Finally, I decided to go with my VPN. However, I really liked the domain blocking feature, so I decided to investigate a little further. It turns out you can use the /etc/hosts files to block certain domains just like in a GNU/Linux computer. It is an easy process and it really makes a difference in your mobile browsing experience. I'll explain how I did it with my phone in case it helps anyone else (although simply installing NetGuard is a simpler solution for sure, and you get more features!).

First of all install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) on your computer. If you are using GNU/Linux, you can use pacman -S adb on Arch based distributions or apt install adb on Debian based distributions, look it up if you have other distributions or operative systems. Now plug your phone into your computer and on your phone enable developer settings (look it up if you don't know how to do it) and do the following:

  1. Android debugging > on
  2. Root access > ADB only
  3. Make sure your computer has access to your phone by enabling PTP on your phone (instead of No data transfer).
  4. On the computer run $ adb root to get root access.
  5. $ adb remount, which will allow you to modify the file on the phone.
  6. $ adb push /path/to/hosts/on/computer /etc/hosts
  7. Done! You can now unplug your phone (and disable the options you enabled previously if wanted).

If you want to edit the file manually, do the following after step 5:

  1. $ adb shell, which will give you a terminal on the phone.
  2. # nano /etc/hosts (vim also works on LineageOS).
  3. Do your changes.
  4. # exit

Easy! However, I am using LineageOS and I am unsure if you can do step 2 on a stock ROM (if you can't, you might need a rooted device). If you try it—whether on a stock ROM or another custom ROM—, let me know if it works! You still won't be able to block certain apps' connections as with NetGuard, but you won't have ads while keeping the VPN feature available for other uses.

  1. NetGuard offers a way to do what I wanted, through proxies, but I didn't like the workaround. ↩