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A comment on EU wants Google to stop anti-competitive Android practices, fine expected. Parent comment

Re:EU wants Google to stop anti-competitive Android practice... by anonymousab on Saturday October 01, 2016 @12:07PM (#12618433)
They block applications that interfere with the operation of other applications.

This would include an ad blocker that blocks ads in, say, a free game, or the built in Chrome browser.

The common workaround was to run connections through a VPN and your ad blocking happens there. I'm not sure if they started cracking down on that as well.

Having apps that modify other apps can certainly be desired behavior, but it's clear why there would be legitimate concerns about customer security in allowing apps that can do so.

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Re:EU wants Google to stop anti-competitive Android practice... by JustSomeNobody on Saturday October 01, 2016 @12:44PM (#12618638)
Don't other platforms block apps that either are too close to existing functionality or interfere with the operations of the builtin apps?
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Re:EU wants Google to stop anti-competitive Android practice... by muninn_ on Saturday October 01, 2016 @12:29PM (#12618541)
Sure I was just pointing out that they do exist at least as far as I could tell.

On iOS I use Focus and Safari and that has been pretty good for me. Obviously that's not something that would work on Android.

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Re:EU wants Google to stop anti-competitive Android practice... by ethanbond on Saturday October 01, 2016 @12:22PM (#12618505)
So... why is it possible?
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Re:EU wants Google to stop anti-competitive Android practice... by tarancato on Saturday October 01, 2016 @12:24PM (#12618517)
There are three approaches:

1. Create a browser with ad blocking builtin or possible with addons (like Firefox).

2. Create a local proxy that blocks ads, and make the user configure it as the system proxy.

3. Require root privileges and do whatever you want (2, or maybe change /etc/hosts, like AdAway does). Yes, there are tons of apps in the Play Store that only work with root. Google never cared much about them.

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