I believe that it is not only here that it becomes visible what a huge task the few people at Murena have tackled with “Advanced Privacy”!
After all, Murena stands with its OS against a whole world full of billionaire tech corporations - and their interests!
I think eOS is a great step into a new direction - for me one of the greatest IT innovations (in the interest of the user!) since the invention of Linux and Open Source!
For me the approach is successful - I look forward to further developments and hope that your mission will be successful!
I agree with you. It just works. Luckily I don’t use nay of the big corpo stuff, so my work flow is the same as before, just more private and informative. I love the statistics how many trackers have been blocked…
Good work and I look forward in updates of it
I’m fully in line. It’s a great step in the good direction, but spoofing location activated means no use of nav system (or any app which needs a real location). From my point of view location spoofing will be useful when it could be activated on an app basis not for the whole system as today.
Like other I would wish the option to activate the tracker blocking function separately (so my mapping app can still show me where I am) but already there I feel like asking too much given the quality of the work presented in v1.0
It is nice to read the possibility to use a vpn is possible with ap turned on.
I would like a bit more clarity about this feature and how it works. Do all three options - location, IP address and tracker blocking all rely on some kind of VPN function?
Like others, I don’t (always) want to spoof my location since I use the Maps app sometimes, and I also want to use my own VPN from time to time. However I would love to block the trackers!
I also don’t particularly want my data speed reduced.
Is there any further info on what this is and how it works?
I’m liking Advanced Privacy so far but I echo what Nick1 said about requiring more information about how it actually works behind the scenes. SkewedZepplin’s post about it using an old version of Tor and Orbot is interesting, but I’d also like to know about how the IP-spoofing feature works - is it a VPN, or is that Tor too? Presumably a newer version of Tor will get built into it at some point…?
Also, on that last point about IP-spoofing, on my phone (Fairphone 3, Android Q) I can’t turn the “Manage my Internet address” feature on. When I turn Advanced Privacy off, I can select “Hide my real IP address”, but when I turn it back on it flicks back to “Use my real IP address” and won’t let me choose anything else. My IP address therefore remains “Exposed”.
The other features work fine – trackers seem to be blocked and my geolocation is spoofed.
I also use Shelter and have a work profile set up, and Advanced Privacy works perfectly in there – IP spoofing and everything else runs like a dream out of the box.
It would also be nice if it used something open-source instead of Mapbox, but
Thanks @anon88181694 I’m pretty much a mainstream user so I don’t need the level of protection that Advanced Privacy provides, but I can see where people in other professions and other countries might find it very much needed. So I’m glad it is there, but it should have a warning about which functions might screw up mainstream services like Outlook.
Advanced Privacy also caused Twitter on the web browser to think I was a robot and sent me into a continuous Captcha loop until I turned AP off.
About the location spoofing, wouldn’t it be better if one could at least choose a region, I would prefer for websites/apps to think I am somewhere in the EU so that its legislation applies. Right now it’s a lot of fun that I appear to be in Quezon City but I fear it might bring other issues with it.
The location spoofing is little bit buggy. Even, I choose to use my real location it doesn’t find my location. Weather widget shows weather of some philippines city. But, when I empty mozilla unifiednlp backend memory and start osmand+, go to outside and let osmand find my gps location the weather widget finds my real location. But still, advanced privacy keeps searching my location (wheel spins, no map appears).
But, this had to be done again today, because the weather showed philippines this morning again. And there for my Garmin watch showed philippines weather.
Hide my ip has been on all the time, because I love this built in Orbot in the new Advanced Privacy feature!!
Also, on that last point about IP-spoofing, on my phone (Fairphone 3, Android Q) I can’t turn the “Manage my Internet address” feature on. […etc.]
To answer my own comment – it turns out the IP spoofing doesn’t work if you already have Orbot installed as a separate app. Uninstalling and reinstalling Orbot has confirmed this.
@anon88181694
Thanks for your feedback about “Advanced Privacy”.
I found your comment very critical about this feature. I think it’s a first step and indeed, some things can/should be revised.
However you say the following:
It seems quite normal that the version of ORBOT used is 0.4.6 in the sense that the version 0.4.7 is only stable since April 27, 2022. I think they have been working on the code for a little longer than a month, hence the use of the second last stable version at the launch.
I don’t know Mapbox at all, so I won’t go over it too much, but the code used remains open-source, which seems to me to be a lesser evil even if it is a third-party application.
Finally, maybe I’m wrong but it seems that it is not only based on exodus but also on adaway (see “id”):
Orbot has 0.4.6.10, Advanced Privacy has 0.4.4.6.
Those are very different versions, the one in Orbot is still supported for another few months.
The one in Advanced Privacy is dead.
Mapbox
Only the SDK/bindings/wrapper is open source, at its core is a giant proprietary blob.
There are actual open source mapping libraries available that /e/ team could’ve chosen.
not only based on exodus
Indeed, you are right there, I hadn’t scrolled that far. Nice catch.
Edit:
I’m so critical because /e/ team giving users Tor without telling them it is Tor is a massive foot gun.
And at this point /e/ team has gone from negligent to reckless.
Advanced Privacy is routing users over Tor, has a WebView with 115 known security vulnerabilities and a PDF viewer with another 28 security vulnerabilities, and their browser no longer forces HTTPS.
One malicious exit serving up Android malware and your device is trivially compromised.
I am reckless then because even if I don’t understand anything I am at least aware, so if it makes me escape Google & Co business models and accessorily plunges them one cent less rich I am good.
It seems to work satisfactorily alongside Tracker Control as far as it goes, but has too many rough edges for my liking. Hiding my real IP address prevents using App Lounge, it needs to be disabled first. Oh, and I get the continuously rotating ring as well. Spoofing my location prevents navigation apps. from working, they all think I’m in Thailand or somewhere and I most definitely am not! It needs disabling for that too. It also confuses the Night Light function. All in all, it’s a bit of a bad joke just now.
My solution is to disable it permanently until it is fixed…assuming it will stay disabled that is.
Nice to see progress on e/OS/ even if theres still a lot to do and probably will always be… Thanks for all your efforts!
One interesting bug I have that I cannot update my email inbox (on my Xperia Z5 Compact) when advanced privacy is on, is that supposed to be like this?
