[Android] No Root Firewall?

[lopri]

I have run into and tested this firewall app.

No Root Firewall

It worked rather well in my short testing so far. Those who want to have more control over apps accessing the Internet but are not comfortable with rooting may want to check it out. A couple of concerns arise out of the nature of its working (VPN)

- Can you trust THIS app? Presumably it gets to know every app you installed and when they are used.
- There is a slight network speed degradation. I did not perceive it in normal use but speedtest does show a little bit of loss.

Google updated whatever security measure in Android 4.3, and I see some quirks with my firewall as well as loss of temporary unroot. (Rootkeeper doesn't work in 4.3) While I was searching for an alternative firewall I've found the above.

Assuming it works as it should, and further assuming that your main reason for rooting is firewall, would you choose this over root?

 

[Red Storm]

Doesn't 4.3 have that "permissions manager" feature or is that still in the works? They showed it off at the last event.

 

[lopri]

That is an excellent suggestion. I completely forgot about it. I even tested several permission management apps yet they didn't come up to my mind. I will have to toggle around to see how it works. If it works like firewall without causing apps to malfunction, that will solve my dilemma.

If anyone is interested, the best permission manager I've found so far is this one.

App Permission Manager

It simply exposes the built-in permission manager, it seems.

 

[cronos]

One of the main things I need root on my phone is for firewall.

I actually didn't try NoRootFirewall, but I did try MobiWol, which doesn't work really well for me. I can't exactly remember but I believe it worked intermittently, most of the errors were it blocking stuff that I wanted (and had already setup as allowed being) passed through. It was pretty irritating.

 

[Crono]

I've been using AFWall+, works about as well as I hoped.
There are way too many apps with dubious permission requirements.

When I get 4.3 I'll be sure to try the built-in permission manager.

 

[lopri]

Unfortunately, permission managers don't seem like adequate alternatives to regular firewalls. As of 4.3, permissions pertaining to Internet connection aren't exposed, I've learned. I can use RomToolbox to configure individual app's permissions on rooted devices, but it is still not as clean-cut like firewall. It's way too confusing (lots of similar wordings, such as "View Network State," "View Network Connection," "Allow Internet connections," etc,. and some of them look to be tied to app's function. (damn devs) For instance, one of my camera apps crashes when I disable all network-related permissions as root, but it works fine when firewall is employed and feeds it bogus IPs.

So while I think a permission manager is better than nothing, it is not enough to replace a real firewall. And Google apparently did not expose all permissions to users, so root is necessary to control internet access permission for now.

I am back to square one. Has anyone tried the above-linked app? It works rather well, but I am still not sure how much information this app itself is gathering and sends back to its headquarter.

 

[lopri]

And 4.3 is quite nice and I don't want to go back to 4.2! The jump from 4.2 to 4.3 is way more significant than 4.1 to 4.2 in my opinion. Google did something to smooth out UI (more than trim, for sure), and radio strength seem improved both for the networks and Wi-Fi.