Blokada 5 for Android: Beta (finished)

[Karol]

I stand corrected, I looked the company up wrong. The explanation doesn’t give much highlight on what may they have a problem with precisely. None of the things mentioned are requested by Blokada, neither sent anywhere.

The only new permissions v5 requests is:

android.permission.INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS

… and that’s just for addressing one VPN bug introduced by a recent Samsung update.

It would be great if you could check if 4.8.1 beta is also reported by this app (it has added the same permission). Link here.

I’ll try to think on what else could be misreported (it’s a false positive certainly), and keep you updated on this.

[Karol]

It works just fine for me. Could you record a video?

[Jrmt]

Thank you Karol for looking into this, the 4.8.1 beta apk and install were analyzed as safe.

[murdock86]

Does this mean that every Blokada 5 version comes with the latest Energ. Blu also pre-updated to the date of the .apk’s release?

i.e. Will Blokada 5.0.9 come with a newer Blu host list then the previous release?

[Karol]

Yes, precisely. It’s updated on release.

[Karol]

Hi guys, just released another update of Blokada 5 beta.

What’s new in Blokada v5

If you are new here, see the Goals in the first post, but in short, new UI (known from iOS) with simpler navigation, and rewritten codebase. We are aiming at a very high level of app stability connectivity, and so far it seems we doing very well with the v5.

Note that many features from v4 are not present yet in v5. They will be ported one by one as we go. The core functionality is there though, and the app should be already usable day to day.

Blokada for Android v5.0.9 beta

• Added GoodByeAds blocklists for Samsung and Xiaomi
• Improvements to the status monitoring notification
• Reorganized the Advanced tab
• Introduced Blokada Slim variant of Blokada 5 beta
• Added Auto backup account ID

[GreggH]

Minor detail… the status monitoring notification no longer shows the number of blocks, simply says active with a list of addresses.

[Karol]

Yes, by design. The counter would lag, and to keep it realtime would require a poll for technical reasons, and would put an unnecessary battery drain.

[GreggH]

Karol…

Thank you. That makes sense.

Gregg in Sackville, NB

[Peter]

Well, I tried and I couldn’t reproduce it Don’t ask how I ran into that for the first time, I tried a few things to get into the situation again, but I couldn’t figure out a way.

[GreggH]

Very curious… the list of sites blocked and/or allowed shows nothing recent. All of the entries say 13 or 14 hours ago, at just after 2 in the morning, local time. The notification drop down, however, doesn’t agree with this, listing 5 recent sites that differ from the 5 most recent sites shown in the app itself. That list, for some reason, is not updating on my tablet.

[GreggH]

Force stopped Blokada, then restarted the app. Both the count and the activity list seem to be okay now. Will keep an eye out to see if it happens again.

[Jorgen_Malmstrom]

I detected the same problem as GreggH had. Solved it in the same way.

[ashubuntu]

Blokada v5.0.9 beta works completely fine on MIUI 12 devices apart from the badge counter synchronization problem.
Both Ad-blocking and DNS works well.

Good job @Karol and team

[Mohit121]

Same problem with me i have to force stop clear cache 20 times a day please fix it adblocking stops in home screen of blokada

[Karol]

I noticed this too on my device, but I was unable to find the reason yet. Anyone experiencing this, @GreggH, @Mohit121, please send me logs once you notice it starts to happen (dots menu -> share log -> hello@blokada.org). Thanks!

[Dar]

Hi, just reinstalled v5 beta (uninstalled my v4 first before installing) to see if the latest patch works. Unfortunately, here are some issues I faced/still facing:

1. Blokada v5 still unable to work for Google Chrome, most said it is due to Chrome built-in DNS. If so then how does v4 works while v5 doesn’t?
   

   
   
   Log shows ads were blocked, but still visible in browser:
   
   

2. Blokada private DNS does not work (v5 beta apk)

3. Start on boot issue, here’s a supporting image:
   

   
   
   There’s no “gear icon” next to Blokada icon. (I’m on Android Pie 9.1)

4. Not only does the adblock failed to work on browser, even on apps it doesn’t work. For example the Ookla Speedtest:
   

   
   
   Logs showing it did block the ad, but apparently it’s still visible:
   
   

---

And here’s more screenshots while running v4;
browsing the same page on the same Google Chrome browser, clearly the ads were gone:

Logs showing similar address blocked while running that page:

Ads no longer showing on Ookla Speedtest app too:

Logs showing similar address blocked when running the Speedtest app:

Cheers.

[fd_svensson]

Hey, Dar.
I have latest beta and went in with Chrome to Forbes. No ads. Looked at different pages. It said Advertising but then it was empty.

[PrintableCharacter]

Make sure to set Private DNS to off.
Here is more on Chrome: Blokada for Android doesn't block ads in Chrome

Unluckily there’s no pattern there. We’re still looking for clues

[Dar]

It’s been off since I was using v4.

@PrintableCharacter it just appears to be weird if v4 works and v5 doesn’t. Just saying, I’m pasting the v5 logs here, there are some errors logged.

23:26:16.456 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (3): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:26:41.831 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (1): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:27:05.880 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (1): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:27:57.864 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (1): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:28:17.860 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (2): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:30:17.599 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (1): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:31:55.843 PacketFilt Blocked: www.google-analytics.com
23:31:55.854 PacketFilt Blocked: www.google-analytics.com
23:31:55.865 PacketFilt Blocked: www.google-analytics.com
23:31:55.874 PacketFilt Blocked: www.google-analytics.com
23:31:56.123 PacketFilt Blocked: www.google-analytics.com
23:31:56.131 PacketFilt Blocked: www.google-analytics.com
23:32:22.187 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (1): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:32:48.392 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (1): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:33:33.217 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (2): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:33:43.653 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (3): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:34:33.183 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (4): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:34:43.619 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (5): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:35:22.260 SystemTunn Unbinding SystemTunnel
23:35:22.271 SystemTunn unbindService called
23:35:22.289 W SystemTunn onUnbind received: oldengine.SystemTunnel@e9529b3
23:35:31.193 PacketFilt Blocked: settings.crashlytics.com
23:35:31.201 PacketFilt Blocked: settings.crashlytics.com
23:35:31.404 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (6): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92
23:35:31.434 PacketFilt Blocked: settings.crashlytics.com
23:35:31.438 PacketFilt Blocked: settings.crashlytics.com
23:35:43.486 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (7): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 32
23:35:47.937 Blocka Querying tunnel status
23:35:47.938 SystemTunn Binding SystemTunnel
23:35:47.960 SystemTunn Bound SystemTunnel
23:35:47.961 Lease Checking lease
23:35:54.123 SystemTunn Unbinding SystemTunnel
23:35:54.128 SystemTunn unbindService called
23:35:54.147 W SystemTunn onUnbind received: oldengine.SystemTunnel@e9529b3
23:36:03.442 E BlockaPack Packet loop error (8): toDevice: packet dropped, length: 92