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[ANDROID] Has anyone gotten Shizuku + Blocker to actually do anything? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 4 months ago by Showroom7561@lemmy.ca to c/foss@beehaw.org

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I came across Shizuku as a root alternative, and while it's been great at freezing apps, I want to disable certain receivers, services, and SDKs from apps.

Blocker is supposed to do this, but even with Shizuku permission, it does nothing when I try to disable any app components.

Does this actually work, or is root required? If root is needed, are there any alternatives that work with Shizuku?

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[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As I understand the readme, for blocking usual apps root privileges are required:

Please note: For normal applications, the Shell permission in Shizuku mode is not sufficient to change the switch status of components. In other words, unmodified APKs do not support non-root modification. If you want to use Shizuku to modify the component status of normal applications, please start Shizuku with Root privileges.

It should work without root privileges for apps in 'testing mode'. Yet, they only provide a guide to flag apps as 'testing' in Chinese language.

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

Well, shit. It's strange how so many places recommend Blocker when using Shizuku, but it really needs Root to be useful.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Canta + Shizuku can wipe any app you want from your phone.

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm not looking to delete apps, just stop certain components within apps.

For example, my banking app uses the Google Ads, Google Firebase Analytics, and Adobe analytics, and I'd like to disable those from running without uninstalling the banking app.

Basically, it disables the bad parts of an app :)

I used to do this when I was into rooting and custom firmware, but I really don't want to go full root with my current phone.

[–] jinx@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

maybe you could use TrackerControl?

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

I actually really like TrackerControl, but use Adguard instead for the same purpose (can't use them at the same time, unfortunately, since they both work through a local VPN).

The difference, though, is that Blocker stops apps from even loading the component that would "call home", where TrackerControl and Adguard try to block those connections after they've been sent by the app.

Yes, you kind of accomplish the same thing, but I would love to be able to prevent apps from using these SDKs in the first place :)