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Comment by Gurrewe | Hacker News Reader

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Gurrewe

The last time I had a jailbroken phone was at the time of iOS 2, back then I didn't think it was worth it.

What has changed in the last four years?

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Being able to have f.lux on my iPhone. http://stereopsis.com/flux/

Mods such as SwipeSelection and Auxo did it for me. Features that I think Apple should have thought of to begin with.

You can enable chrome as the default browser and allow it to use the Nitro engine.

You can also give it a full-screen button. And a save to [insert read later service here] button.

The most important part of jb for me is the ability to run an host based firewall, and have per application rules. I use FirewallIP on iOS 5, I hope it works on iOS 6. I block hundreds of ad and tracking servers as global policy. This functionality doesnt exist on android... I've yet to find anything except moxies firmware for the nexus (now MIA) that has this.

I've been running FirewallIP on iOS 6 for a few months now, it works great.

Essential things for me: having openSSH running so I can upload files to my device from linux, and installing a custom "hosts" file to get rid of advertising.

I do like having OpenVPN and better wireless scanning/details.

there is a official openvpn support in the appstore now, fyi.

What do you use for wireless scanning?

Sorry late response... One is WiFi Analyzer. Shows Channel, strength, encryption, ssid. Has a nice little great with signal strength along with min/max/avg. Not sure if you can get it from appstore now as someone else pointed out can get OpenVPN officially there now :)

Also... I'm curious as to why Apple hasn't added a SBSettings / NCSettings type feature as most other smartphones have toggle buttons in the "notification area" which make life a lot easier.

Reversing engineering apps is always educational. You can see a lot just with a class-dump of an unencrypted binary.

FirewallIP is my killer IOS app. Once I can get the equivalent for Android, I'll happily leave the Apple ecosystem.

I'm on my phone so I don't know the complete FirewallIP features but Droidwall is pretty useful.

AdBlock in MobileSafari is also nice

Jailbreaking doesn't let you write to /etc/hosts?

disclaimer: ignorant, but curious Android user.

I want to do it so I can enable LTE on my network that Apple doesn't have a special deal with

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