Script to block chosen Android apps from accessing the internet

[ichthyosaurus]

@pherjung / @moderators can you split all posts after and including Script to block chosen Android apps from accessing the internet - #16 by chr1s into this thread: Apps by ichthyosaurus ? That would make discussion here a little cleaner. Thank you!

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@chr1s

I haven’t used OpenRepos before, so I don’t know when I’ll get around to trying it…

There are built packages and screenshots in the repo

@chr1s

I don’t have “/home/.android/data/data/" on my phone, just “/home/.appsupport/instance/defaultuser/data/data/“. On what device/version does the former folder appear? And can both folders appear on the same device? (So I can update my script.)

My Xperia 10 III with Sailfish 4.6 has the former path, my C2 with latest Sailfish 5.x uses the latter. My app supports both.

@chr1s

You don’t seem to filter the apps from that folder, so I assume your app displays all the built-in Jolla ‘helper’ apps that are part of SfOS, which the user doesn’t normally see or need to know about??

I do actually: MainPage.qml I used the list from your script. It uses Jolla’s own ApplicationSettingsModel which is not ideal but it was the quickest way to get the results I needed. Implementing a custom model may make sense in a future version.

@chr1s

I see you just restart ConnMan (which is a bit slow), rather than directly update iptables. I suppose that’s the safest way, and arguably you don’t need to do anything else, but hopefully later you might implement the much faster method I use…

Yes, I don’t like parsing CLI output. I just pushed version 0.2.0 where I implemented a new method that works faster and doesn’t require parsing iptables: connman doesn’t support live reloading changed config files (Firewall | Sailfish OS Documentation) but it does support adding and removing config files without a service restart. So now the app simply switches between two config files (60-... and 61-...), then calls systemctl reload connman. This is fast and reliable.

@chr1s

The source code has many more files than I’d naively expect, which makes it hard to check the safety of it!

You can ignore most of it. The code in src is just for setup, everything in qml/modules is the GitHub - Pretty-SFOS/opal: A collection of pretty QML components for SailfishOS library. All the magic happens in qml/py/firewall.py and the main GUI part is in qml/pages/MainPage.qml.

@chr1s

Also, why does the installer’s name begin with “harbour”? Do you plan to submit the app to Jolla’s official app store? (Harbour?) (Do they usually allow apps that need root access?)

Because of: FAQ This app won’t fly in harbour but it makes maintenance easier if all my apps follow the same structure.

@chr1s

Do you plan to submit the app to Chum? (I read they compile the apps themselves(?), and so it’s presumably a little more trustworthy source for apps?)

Would be nice but I didn’t manage to set it up yet. From a developer perspective I also see little use in it because it is yet another place where I’d have to manually release stuff. Automatic publishing from Git to chum to Harbour and OpenRepos would be ideal…

@kaulian

Hi, test with latest 5.0 and work well

Nice, thank you!