I know money makes the world go round, and I also know that there's a bunch of developers making great apps that make our life easier and it's just fair that they're paid for their work.
But I can't stand ads. Banners on my screens are like flies in my soup or cockroaches in my bed.
Since I got my 1st Android, my tool to remove such annoyances was AdFree.
The concept is simple: To display ads, applications contact a web server on the internet and ask for a banner. Said server logs the information it receives and provides the banner, more or less tuned for your demographics.
To contact that server, it needs it's address. DNS is the directory service that provides computer's addresses to requesting programs. But before asking a DNS servers, a local "hosts" file that contains name-to-addresses mappings is consulted. If, instead of containing valid mappings it contains "broken" ones, it'll prevent the communication from happening.
There's a few online services that provides lists of ad servers for which broken entries can be created.
To leverage those lists, my pick is now AdAway. My previous app failed after an upgrade, at which point I found this one. It downloads a few lists, merge them, and updates your hosts file. Note that your device must be rooted for this to work. Otherwise you don't have the privileges necessary to update system files.
Some of the good features of AdAway include customizing the list of URLs from which to fetch hosts lists, adding whitelisted items and using an included local webserver to serve fake ads and prevent some applications from crashing or displaying lenghty error messages because they can't reach their ad server.
Showing posts with label ads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ads. Show all posts
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
SSH (that's Secure Shell)
If you use Linux, or any Unix variant, you use SSH.
The most popular ssh client on Android is ConnectBot. It also offers telnet and local terminal functionality, which saves you the hassle of installing and maintaining a dedicated terminal. And it supports private keys, allowing you password-less logins; It's got everything an SSH client should have.
Looking at this the other way, SSHDroid lets you run an SSH server on your android device (which is a Linux system after all). It supports private keys to let you login without password from your trusted PCs.
You'll need a rooted device to listen on port 22, but then you'll probably have to purchase the Pro version since it'll detect that you're using AdFree or have found another way to free your device of annoying ads. SSHDroid is the only app I've seen that mind not being able to display it's revenue-producing visual pollution. Or more believably it's developer is the only one that thought about checking...
The SSH client is helpful, especially if you're on call and carry a bluetooth keyboard on your faraway trips instead of a much heavier laptop plus it's costly dedicated cellular modem; but the server can be a revelation as it lets you scp files back and forth in addition to giving you a full console interface (your PC) to work on, or hack, your device.
The most popular ssh client on Android is ConnectBot. It also offers telnet and local terminal functionality, which saves you the hassle of installing and maintaining a dedicated terminal. And it supports private keys, allowing you password-less logins; It's got everything an SSH client should have.
Looking at this the other way, SSHDroid lets you run an SSH server on your android device (which is a Linux system after all). It supports private keys to let you login without password from your trusted PCs.
You'll need a rooted device to listen on port 22, but then you'll probably have to purchase the Pro version since it'll detect that you're using AdFree or have found another way to free your device of annoying ads. SSHDroid is the only app I've seen that mind not being able to display it's revenue-producing visual pollution. Or more believably it's developer is the only one that thought about checking...
The SSH client is helpful, especially if you're on call and carry a bluetooth keyboard on your faraway trips instead of a much heavier laptop plus it's costly dedicated cellular modem; but the server can be a revelation as it lets you scp files back and forth in addition to giving you a full console interface (your PC) to work on, or hack, your device.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Notifications spam... WTF?
I just got bit by this and suffered through many seconds of intense spiritual discomfort before finding a cure.
There's a new contender for the "Most annoying stuff" award, and it's called AirPush. There's a few implementations with different names, but that seem to be by what the idea's generally referred.
What this does is push random spam to your notification bar. That place where you keep an eye to detect missed email, battery status and other useful tidbits gets hijacked by irrelevant crap.
Good news is, there's solutions. The more obvious one is to figure out what application's guilty and remove it forever. If you're kind, also take a second to put a one star rating on the market to help other users avoid getting bit.
There's a small app, Airpush Detector, that'll pinpoint the culprit. It's free, small, and require no permission. The kind of app that can stay on your phone forever even if you never use it.
If you absolutely must keep the guilty app, there's other less elegant means to protect yourself. Those include Airblock and Airblocker (for rooted phones) that are supposed to filter the crap. Or you can try AirPush's Permanent Opt Out, either through their web site or the market app. But I fear you'll have to do something similar for every company that have it's own name and implementation.
There's a new contender for the "Most annoying stuff" award, and it's called AirPush. There's a few implementations with different names, but that seem to be by what the idea's generally referred.
What this does is push random spam to your notification bar. That place where you keep an eye to detect missed email, battery status and other useful tidbits gets hijacked by irrelevant crap.
Good news is, there's solutions. The more obvious one is to figure out what application's guilty and remove it forever. If you're kind, also take a second to put a one star rating on the market to help other users avoid getting bit.
There's a small app, Airpush Detector, that'll pinpoint the culprit. It's free, small, and require no permission. The kind of app that can stay on your phone forever even if you never use it.
If you absolutely must keep the guilty app, there's other less elegant means to protect yourself. Those include Airblock and Airblocker (for rooted phones) that are supposed to filter the crap. Or you can try AirPush's Permanent Opt Out, either through their web site or the market app. But I fear you'll have to do something similar for every company that have it's own name and implementation.
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