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Comment by manmal | Hacker News Reader

Most ads don't work without a connection, so for games that allow it, I just disable Wifi on my son's iPad. Works great for e.g. Zombie Tsunami, it's actually a way better experience without wifi.

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This hack works. I wish there was way to disable internet for some apps. I am sure that's possible on android.

Not without rooting it isn't. I don't think even Android 7.0 has an option to disable internet access on per-app basis - you can disable most permissions, but accessing the internet does not require a special permission(there used to be an INTERNET permission but it has been removed by Google)

>(there used to be an INTERNET permission but it has been removed by Google)

Can't say I'm too surprised by this development. I am surprised they were magnanimous enough to give it in the first place.

It was likely implemented before google took over android.

It seems unlikely, given that the permissions system (if we're talking being able to approve certain permissions only, per app) only came in a relatively recent version of Android (definitely >3).

There's a way. A firewall, that work as a local VPN. You don't need to root your Android. I use NetGuard. https://www.netguard.me

It's open source.

I wonder if this local vpn trick would work on iOS.

Does iOS support VPNs? I've never used an iDevice before.

It does.

They'd have a hard time selling millions of them to corporate drones "in the enterprise" if it didn't. This and Exchange support are basically unavoidable for those kinds of sales.

Joking aside, iOS has supported VPN connections since as long ago as iPhone OS (feels weird calling it that now) 4 I think?

Haven't tried if it works but my android version (6.0.1) seems to have an option for disabling internet for specific apps. Note that I haven't rooted (yet). Going to Settings -> Data Usage -> Settings will show me a list of apps and I can chose between following four options Allow, Forbidden, Wi-Fi only and Data only.

It works.

Which manufacturer? ASUS?

My Motorola Moto G4 Play has Android 6.0.1 too and the only option present is to restrict background data.

OnePlus (3T) for me. (on the Data Usage page it was the small dots menu button in the top right hand corner.)

I also have a G4 Play. I recommend installing LineageOS on it, rooting it, and installing AFWall, which allows setting app-granular networking permissions for WiFi, VPN, and cellular.

Mine is a OnePlus 2 device.

Thanks, didn't know that. For other people the path was Settings -> Data Usage -> Data Usage Control for me.

Apps still need to add the INTERNET permission to work. It's just now it's one of those that are automatically granted without action from the user. I suppose there could be some hack to disable it for certain apps though.

I agree. I wish there was a way of disabling internet on a per-app basis. The iPhone has this for mobile data, but not for wifi.

Even if it was a passive permission - i.e. you had to specifically go into settings and disable it, rather than being asked for each app - I'd be fine with that.

search play store for "no root firewall"

enjoy

Huawei's EMUI can do this. You can enable and disable WiFi, cellular data and even roaming on a per app basis as well.

So at least Huawei did something good with their own UI.

ISTR that's coming in iOS 11.

Ha. Awesome idea. I'll check it out!

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