@Tony,
There seems to be several methods of blocking trackers in App Manager. From blocking all in one fell swoop (not recommended) to individually.
Method 1: Block All At Once
Press 3-dot menu at upper right to bring down main menu.
Select +1 1-Click Ops
from menu.
Select Block/unblock trackers
.
Dialog will prompt if you want to apply to system apps also.
Apps and the number of trackers they include will appear. From here you can choose what to block or unblock.
I’ve never used this method.
Method 2: Manually Select Apps, Then Block
From the main display, long press apps to select them.
Press 3-dot menu at lower right.
Choose Block trackers
from menu.
Trackers blocked without further action.
Never used this one either except for testing.
Method 3: Individual App, Block All Trackers
Tap on any app you’re interested in.
If app has trackers, tap on the pill button denoting number of trackers.
List of trackers will appear. Select BLOCK or UNBLOCK as appropriate.
This one doesn’t work for me. App Manager crashes every time for some reason.
Method 4: Individual App, Block As Needed
Sort of a two parter. If trackers are present they will be under one or more of the following tabs: ACTIVITIES, SERVICES, RECEIVERS, PROVIDERS
.
Go to any tab, choose Sort
and select Tracker first
to put trackers up top so you don’t have to look for them. Trackers will have a different colored background than non-trackers. Orange-ish I guess. Blocked trackers will have a red background.
Individual Blocking
Tap the little symbol on the right side of any tracker until it changes to what looks like a clock with circle arrow. Doing so will cause a notice to appear stating Rules are not applied
.
To apply, tap on 3-dot menu and choose Apply Rules
. May have to do that for each tab but not sure.
Block Trackers In All Tabs
My preferred method.
After examing the trackers in each tab, from 3-dot menu select Block trackers
. All trackers present in any tab will be blocked.
That’s it I believe. Hope this helps.
Reason I don’t do block-all actions is because not all trackers are bad and should be left to the user to determine if they should be kept. Crash log reporting in some cases. Let’s be honest, we’ll use some alpha/beta level apps that crash but are too lazy to send in bug reports.
I have one rare case. For years I’ve been using Advanced Download Manager Pro (no longer available, promise I’m moving over to Download Navi). It’s package name is com.dv.adm.pro. Apparently there’s a tracker that uses com.dv somewhere. As a result almost all of the app is considered full of trackers, about 20. I gave a look see at the “new” version available from Play Store and it has over 30. Of course that’s not true but every part of the app with com.dv is flagged.
As you may notice from one of the screen shots, there are apps I forgot have trackers, like TrackerControl itself. Hardly bad though.