Not working on Lineage OS 15.1 / 16

[kasnder]

@bege10: BusinessCalendar2 allows to download school holiday calendars. This only works if I deactivate blocking for that app in TC. There are no trackers listed for that app in TC. Additionally ProfiMail Go (mail client) does not connect correctly to t-online.de (IMAP, starts with a few folders and then hangs) and not at all to gmx.de (POP3, but there is a tracker listed for United Internet Media which hosts GMX). After deactivating blocking in TC all accounts work correct.

[bege10]

This issue has been solved with beta 12 and now returned with beta 13

[kasnder]

Sorry to hear that--will check!

[kasnder]

Could you check for me that the tracker category “Others” is disabled for this app?

Gmx domains will fall into this domain and the app will not work otherwise.

[bege10]

Do you mean category "Uncategorised"? That is the category the only entry (United Internet Media) is in. If I unblock this GMX works. The other e-mail providers also work in this version. I have mentioned BusinessCalendar2 in my first post. That works correct in beta 13, but another app has that problem: QuickDic (de.reimardoeffinger.quickdic at F-Droid) has not tracker listed but does not download dictionaries unless I deactivate blocking for that app.

[kasnder]

Thanks for confirming this.

Do you use the optional Adblocking feature?

If in doubt, you probably always disable blocking for an app entirely. The app should then circumvent the VPN tunnel and communicate directly with the Internet.

[bege10]

Do you use the optional Adblocking feature?

Is that "Block domain names" in advanced settings? No, I don't use that. I use AdAway for Adblocking.

If in doubt, you probably always disable blocking for an app entirely. The app should then circumvent the VPN tunnel and communicate directly with the Internet.

Why does TrackerControl block app connections if there is no tracker listed for that app?

[kasnder]

Why does TrackerControl block app connections if there is no tracker listed for that app?

Good question.. It shouldn't! I'll investigate!

[bege10]

The browsers Firefox klar and Cliqz now also have entries in the "Uncategorized" category:

• Amazon (Unblocked)
• Cloudflare
• jQuery Foundation Firefox has
• Cloudflare
• Mozilla

They all don't display downloads.lineageos.org if this category is active.

[kasnder]

I guess this is due to the way TrackerControl is programmed. It doesn’t really offer the level of granularity to help with tracking in web browsers.

[kasnder]

I’m sorry!

[bege10]

It is okay if TrackerControl is meant for apps only. So blocking should be disabled for browsers? Can TrackerControl recognize browsers and disable blocking for those by default?

[kasnder]

That’s a good point, and I really don’t know! Whilst users should be able to make their own choices—also regarding browsers, the problems with blocking certain apps are not clear from TrackerControl.

But then, where to draw the line, of what apps should be disabled by default, even beyond browsers? Ideas?

[bege10]

I just thought it would be good if TC could recognize browsers if it cannot handle browsers correctly anyway. I don't know if that is possible. If not, show a notification about that issue when installing TC. That other apps are blocked without any listed trackers must be fixed IMO.

[kasnder]

Yeah, I absolutely agree! I’ll do my best!

[kasnder]

I checked QuickDic on two devices, Android 10 and Android 5. For me, the app works. What I found though is that the downloading isn't done by the app, but rather by the system-wide Download Manager. Consequently, any downloads aren't attributed to the app.

[kasnder]

Please check that you don't block any system apps, or Google Chrome. Otherwise, the downloads may not function.

[bege10]

Thank you for checking this. That is amazing. Download-Manager and Downloads unblocked. If QuickDic is blocked on my phone no downloads are done. As soon as I unblock QuickDic downloads are accomplished. (Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus (SM-G901F), LineageOS for microG 16 (Android 9)) As written above I had the same problem with BusinessCalendar2 (no trackers listed also) with Beta 12, with Beta 13 no problem.

[kasnder]

Hmm.. Maybe, you have to delete the app data of TrackerControl. There was a change in the blocklist functionality to Beta 13. This could be it!

[bege10]

I cleared app data. Download Manager, Downloads, MTP-Host and Media Storage are unblocked together, QuickDic blocked. With the first attempt to download a dictionary the 4 mentioned system apps show one tracker (Amazon, unblocked), download fails. QuickDic shows no tracker. Unblocking QuickDic, download succeeds (still no tracker). Nothing changed with respect to this issue.

[kasnder]

This must be really annoying for you and I appreciate your patience.

I’ll look into it. What Android version are you using?

[bege10]

I use TC on Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus (SM-G901F), LineageOS for microG 16 (Android 9).

I activated DNS over TLS (private DNS) and saw the notification of TC that this should be deactivated for traffic filter. Do I understand it correct that filtering the traffic cannot be done with encrypted DNS? Does TC then apply the tracker rules for all apps without the option to unblock certain apps and certain trackers per app? Also system apps?

While tampering with DoT and traffic filter I noticed that TC 2020.04.22 does download the dictionaries if traffic filter is deactivated (at least most times I tried), not if the filter is activated. (QuickDic setting as above: Blocked but no tracker listed)

[kasnder]

At the moment, Private DNS must be turned off. Otherwise, there's no way to analyse the app connections.

[kasnder]

I also noticed other apps that have similar problems, so thanks so raising this. I've been busy recently with releasing the app on F-Droid, so sorry for the delay.

[bege10]

At the moment, Private DNS must be turned off. Otherwise, there's no way to analyse the app connections.

Only for traffic filter (trackers per app) or generally? Will this be possible in future or currently on a rooted phone? I hope that DoT and DoH will become standard.

[kollokollo]

I had TC block the connection to my email provider (web.de) because it belongs to united media. The email provider is indeed a tracker, but it would have been better if TC not had that blocked by default. So I had to figure out why I didnt get any emails any longer. This was not obvious. So may I suggest that TC not block every tracker by default, but let the user allow blocking manually and individually?

[kasnder]

I'm sorry for that.

Since this has occurred a few times now, I've excluded the company from blocking in the upcoming release.

[kollokollo]

Maybe just make it optional and off by default.

[kasnder]

I guess the real challenge is to have reliable blocking, which is easy to use and doesn’t break things.

Unfortunately, Android gives limited access to network traffic. Great for app security, not so great for the individual, wanting to take control over their data.

[kasnder]

I tried to address the problems discussed in this thread, with the last couple of releases.

https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android/releases/tag/2020052102

Could you check if the situation has improved for you?

[kollokollo]

I like the features of the app. Now one can see the individual names of all thouse trackes and it is much easier to decide if one wnats to accept them. :-) Thank you. A great App.

[bege10]

I tried to address the problems discussed in this thread, with the last couple of releases.

https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android/releases/tag/2020052102

Could you check if the situation has improved for you?

TC 2020.05.21-fdroid: Dictionary downloads from within QuickDic are still blocked. No trackers listed. https://github.com/OxfordHCC/tracker-control-android/issues/23#issuecomment-615343270

[bege10]

The app Wetter.com (com.wetter.androidclient) does not work at all as long as TC is active. No trackers listed. To unblock only the app does not help, only deactivating TC completely.

[kasnder]

Thanks for flagging this. This should be nicely reproducible. I’ll work on this intensely next week!

[kasnder]

@bege10, I checked this and I still can't reproduce the error. I'm very sorry.

It might be because of your Lineage 16 build. There are known issues with this.

In my test device with Android 9, the weather app is working fine. It's a shame that so many users are affected by this Lineage issue.

[kasnder]

VPN seems to be a general problem with Lineage 15.1 and 16:

https://github.com/guardianproject/orbot/issues/151

I don't think there's much I can do about this unfortunately.

[bege10]

VPN seems to be a general problem with Lineage 15.1 and 16:

guardianproject/orbot#151

I don't think there's much I can do about this unfortunately.

My phone Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus (SM-G901F), LineageOS for microG 16 (Android 9) is the one that works in this post https://github.com/guardianproject/orbot/issues/151#issuecomment-575919254 (second one at end of the post). The only difference is that I have LineageOS for microG.

[kasnder]

Some amazing news!! One user reported success in fixing TC, after using this tool:

https://github.com/bluetrees2/novpn/releases/download/v1.0/NoVPN-v1.0.apk

This is mentioned in the above Orbot discussion. It needs root, then select TrackerControl from the NoVPN app.

Haven't tested this myself. Use at your own risk.