[APP][6.0+] RethinkDNS: Anti-Censorship + Adblocker + Firewall [open source] [no root]

[Nastrahl]

My understanding is that this app bypasses my blocking rules from the /etc/hosts file, right?

Is there a benefit to using this app instead of energized protection magisk module + a custom dns server? (ISP cannot see requests bc they are encrypted with https?).
Or any drawbacks? (More battery usage than hosts file?)

Thanks for any advice .

Editing the HOSTS file is the worst method actually.

It's slow. Hosts file needs to be cached in RAM by the DNS client and that takes time + processing power.

When the DNS cache is flushed, it needs to cache it again.

Internet may be completely unresponsive during the caching

It takes an enormous quantity of RAM especially if you use energized because their lists are huge

There's a high risk of blocking useless domain because you'll never try to resolve in the first place so it's a waste of resources.

It's non optimized as it's supports no filtering rules.

Using a VPN means that it will ignore system's hosts file for the VPN's database so it's an other waste of resources

If you already use a custom DNS server there's no need to use the hosts file. Instead, let the DNS server to filter domains out by importing energized lists in it.

The benefit i see is than you can also make use of the firewall to block locally everything you need per apps, while hosts file/ DNS filtering are system wide.

You can customize a lot of rules based on your preferences also.

I don't know if it can do cosmetic blocking to hide placeholders of ads on websites though

 

[buddy96]

Just came across it whilst looking for an alternative to blokada as I wanted the ability to block specific apps. Amazing ! and I've only scratched the surface. I'm surprised this has not attracted more attention from users with non-rooted devices.

Thank you !

 

[celestialspring]

I am waiting for the next version because it will have some features that i must have in such an app.

The devs are working hard on it! Hopefully we will get an update soon.

 

[FFW]

I just stumbled upon this app from a comment in the weblog of Mike Kuketz - and I did not believe my eyes when I read through this thread: finally there seems a chance to have the combination of a local firewall, ad blocker AND a VPN client to forward the traffic to my own network after filtering on an unrooted Android! This is ***so*** great news!
With an integrated Wireguard client included, this app will be quite likely to replace NetGuard on my phone if it runs stable

Some questions I had during setup:

• what is the difference between unblocking and whitelisting apps in the firewall module?
• while transferring my blocked apps from NetGuard for the test, I found the grouping of the blocked apps a little irritating, especially since there is a button that switches to "unblocked" as soon as I unblock one app of the whole group (and blocks the whole group again if I accidentially press it). Can this be turned off?
• I know from Netguard there is a switch to block/unblock apps with "root" id. Is there something similar in ReThinkDNS?
• how are the blocklists I have chosen updated? For Netguard, I have the possbility to update the Blocklist I chose to use via tasker in a time interval I can specify (yes, not the most intuitive way to do this...).
• can I backup/import my list of blocked/allowed apps and chosen blocklist(s) and other settings?

But: all in all, this looks very promising! I am looking forward on how this app develops!