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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

Its' really telling that Google doesn't offer an API to access a firewall which provides a clear list of connections and the apps which create them and a way to prohibit such specific connections, possibly also according to blacklists.

They really don't want users to have control over this.

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It's more telling that governments haven't made it a mandatory feature on all devices with networking capabilities.

Google hasn't made a successful product in over a decade (nor have their existing products improved in any meaningful sense) - these people are not capable of anything besides hoarding power (and passing leet code I guess :P).

Is it? Do Fedora or Ubuntu provide an API like that?

You mean, like unrestricted access to the kernel with full firewalling capabilities? ;)

Yes, GNU/Linux distributions provide exactly that.

No, you have to install additional software for that.

The linux kernel has a built-in firewall, and provides iptables to configure it. Firewalld is also installed by default at least on Fedora, and UFW for debian-based.

Unless this is just a battle of semantics on the fact iptables/firewalld/ufw are user space apps.

There is no clean interface to configure app-based network rules.

I think the main gripe is Google's lack of API to access a firewall. It would make sense for the kernel to provide that API and leave the UI to user space apps.

Edit: and to clarify, you can have a user space app on Android to configure a firewall but they will either require root or a VPN-based solution like NetGuard.

Both SELinux and AppArmor support per app network rules, however they both leave something to be desired in terms of ease of use and features.

https://selinuxproject.org/page/NetworkStatements

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/en/man5/apparmor...

Yes.

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