Protection from surveillance or maintaining confidentiality for all computer and mobile devices is an urgent problem. For this, a personal firewall is used to protect the user from unauthorized access to his data from the outside. And the Android operating systems are no exception.
Why do I need a firewall for Android?
Of course, the size of incoming and outgoing traffic on mobile devices is much smaller than in Windows-systems, however, even with this state of affairs, the user is not immune to the penetration of a huge amount of advertising on his devices when accessing the Internet, not to mention viruses or spyware, stealing personal data.
You can protect yourself in the simplest way by installing a firewall for the Android system or any other OS. Consider the options for using a firewall specifically for devices running Android.
Possible installation options
As in many other cases, the capabilities of the system itself are too weak (in some versions of the OS they simply are not). Therefore, you will have to install specialized software. Applications can be downloaded from the Play Market or found on the same Internet.
On the other hand, installing a firewall for Android is not always as easy as it might seem at first glance. There are two options:
- installation on devices with root rights;
- use of programs that do not require extended access rights.
Consider both situations.
Android Firewall for rooted devices
It is believed that installing a firewall on devices with root privileges looks both simpler and more reliable. At least for the Android Firewall app it is. It was originally designed to be installed precisely in such systems, that is, without root rights it will not work.
Installation is quite simple. But the program features deserve special attention. An application can not only limit traffic or terminate some programs that try to spontaneously connect to the Network or download something from there. It can save battery power, search applications, create up to six different user profiles, work with white and black lists, restrict or allow data transfer in roaming mode, set passwords for entering programs, create rules for use or even scripts executed at certain moments, and much more.
Firewall for use without root rights
However, not all devices can easily get root privileges. There are situations when doing this is very problematic. What to use in this case? A firewall for “Android” comes to the rescue without a root installation. The program is called - NoRoot Firewall.
This application, by its functional capabilities, of course, looks somewhat weaker than the previous utility, but it also knows how to make quite interesting settings, including even creating a list of addresses for which access prohibition can work. In addition, the program has a notification system when a process or application tries to access the Internet.
If we talk about general settings, here especially the default settings do not need to be changed. After the first start, we press the start button, and also put a check mark in front of the automatic response when loading, agree with the request for access to the settings of VPN connections and that’s all. After activating the connection in the list, you can see all the processes and applications trying to enter the Network. Now only the user decides what to prohibit or allow.
In this case, in the list of programs you can see two types of marks (squares). One is responsible for setting parameters via Wi-Fi connections, and the second is used to change the rules when connecting via a mobile operator’s network.
On the global rules tab, the user can block access to the Network even at a specific IP address. Finally, you can view all events through a special journal. By the way, the lock is useful to owners of Chinese gadgets that spontaneously connect to the servers of this state and transfer user information to them.
In general, only the two most popular programs were considered here, but on the Internet or in the same Play Market service you can find, download and install any other firewall for Android, only before installation and use you should read the description and pay attention to the need for root -Right.