Hello I installed the BasicNote app from play store and disabled all permissions entirely as I only wanna use it as offline but when I open the app it still displays adds and is capable of opening them in browser and play store how is this possible if the app is supposed to be offline and cannot open outside apps since I disabled all permissions ? Thanks !

    iak changed the title to App displaying ads without any permissions .

    iak Some suggestions:

    1. The app might ship with the ads already compiled into it.
    2. Any app can ask the OS to forward a URL to the default browser. It may be possible to disable this, but I don't know how to do it. That does not mean that the app has network access; IPC access within a profile is entirely different.
    3. Likewise, an app containing libraries for talking to the Play Store app can talk to the Play Store app via IPC.

    Hunting around on the forum will likely turn up recent posts suggesting the GrapheneOS developers are experimenting with IPC filtering.

      de0u okay thanks for this I will look into it more hopefully they can figure something out to enable complete app isolation that would be great but yeah I was just confused for a bit there haha Thanks!

      de0u so I think I figured it out airplane mode bricks the basic notes adds so I played around ended up disabling just the network permission on google play services with all other connections enabled and got the adds bricked so its definitely that communicating with basic notes beaming adds to the app despite the removal of all available permissions of the app itself its still not isolated sadly and hey also I noticed there isn't any option to individually disable just WiFi or just data only network having two separate permissions would be quite useful IMO as my iPhone 8 did some apps are sucking back celular data when I only wanna use them on WiFi but completely different topic I guess very excited to see the day when I can properly isolate adds and prevent cross app communications entirely through an individual permission !!! Love the os and team thanks for all the hard work you guys put in I respect the crap outta what everyone here stands for ... : )

        iak Get the app LuckyPatcher and rebuild app without google ads.

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          18 days later

          ThatOneGuy yes that's a possibility but seems out of my scope I'm not very good with tech and rebuilding an app seems a bit complex although I don't know I'd much rather just have an individual google play services permission to disable so that the app can't communicate with google services anymore and it will brick the adds automatically ! But hopefully gos devs are working on this and it will be released soon with the new app isolation update ! I'm very excited for that one : )

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            • Edited

            I think this is more Play Services related than anything else. I can say that by an example of one of my games (ThunderdomeGT). When installed via Play Store, it displays "mock" ads even with network restriction and when installed via Aurora Store or other source, ads don't get displayed at all.

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            iak

            instead of blocking network access of an Ad infested note taking app

            how about using an ad free alternative?

            As simple note taking app I am using Notally: https://github.com/OmGodse/Notally
            you can get it also on the google play store.

              Aeon blocking network access for some apps is also a privacy measure, not only to avoid ads

              boldsuck yeah fair point but again I'm looking for the opposite a completely offline Notes app that can't communicate with anything ever and anything I'm finding has some form of cross app or cross system communications with it either visible or non visible in the background its very hard for me to understand why I can't revoke all the permissions on gos from the app and completely isolate it yet if i dont use it for 6 months it can autobrick/isolate itself why can't we toggle this on for individual apps as an option with a selectable timeframe that would be nice to have the choice to instakill anything that I'm not currently running or at least have the toggle right now all my apps are running in the background sucking up data battery and processing half or ever 3/4s don't need to be something simple like a notes app will still work perfectly fine without any sort of supports or outside communications as soon as youd decide to wake it up my vision would be almost like a cryostasis where the app is in a cryo chamber completely frozen until I decide to thaw it out by opening it I can add my note or whatever then as soon as a close it the app cryos itself back up immediately and ceases any and all forms of functionality almost like locking it up in a deep underground nuclear bunker this doesn't just apply to this app either all the other apps I have like Snapchat Facebook messenger Instagram all talk with each other and well and share info with eachother like how is it that I can make a completely brand new Facebook account and as soon as I open the account there's like all the people I know and talk to giving me the option to add them as friends with a fresh account with a burner email and zero personal info that shit is sketchy anyone that I have phone numbers for in my contacts or have added as friends on other platforms or even people in my same area location come up on there despite me removing all permissions except network now I understand that apps can use IP to track locations but its more then that maybe I'm just tripping but the amount of info common apps are scraping on people is nutz gos has made incredible strides in terms of tricking things into thinking everything is okay and I'm very much looking forward to the new app isolation update to see what kinda 5 star meals they have been cooking up and can't wait love the team and everything they stand for and thank them for all the incredibly hard work they have been putting in nonstop for us all !!!

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                iak the most simple answer to your question about desired functionality is to disable an app until you next need it (or using an automation app that puts the app to sleep as soon as it registers it running at a cost of increased battery usage). I have also a long time been saying that the most privacy invasive app is sandboxed Google Play itself which is why I don't use it because it bridges all the gaps within all other privacy unfriendly BS.

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                  The GOS website has a section under Usage:

                  [...] Google Play apps [...] you install them within a specific user or work profile and they're only available within that profile. Only apps within the same profile can use it and they need to explicitly choose to use it.

                  https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

                  The notes app chose to use GPlay in the same profile as GPlay, and then Gplay served it ads.
                  Exactly like the GOS website says it would.

                  Try typing your notes in a separate profile that does not have GPlay & co installed on it.

                  Hey,u get the ads from the Google apis from the sandboxed play services, there are four solution to resolve this problem :
                  1) Uninstall Google play services, the app will be completely offline.
                  2) revoke Network access to Google play services, so the app can't access ad apis. Not best solution since notifications that rely on play services won't work properly anymore.
                  3) use piracy, install lucky patcher from a trusted source and remove the Google Ads components from the app and repackage it and reinstall it. Not ideal solution either because the dynamics of lucky patcher is not really security oriented.
                  4) use a different profile without play services and install the app there and use it on that profile.

                    [deleted] I don't understand why we cant have our cake and eat it too here I would like to be able to have play services on my phone but be able to isolate it to certain apps that require it like g maps or whatever no reason IMO that Im not able to revoke play services permissions individually on a per app basis but again hopefully this is fixed

                    Mintou 5) disable play services permission for the individual app cutting off all communications with play services
                    6) enable insta disable on the individual app itself so that whenever its not open on screen it puts itself to sleep automatically

                    ...on a serious note at this point I'm kinda just requesting features lol I understand what needs to be done to fix this problem thanks for all the help everyone and hopefully in the future we can all look forward to having a more simplified complete privacy experience with minimal inconveniences on the base os shoutout to the entire gos team love y'all ! Keep up the great work !!!