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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • Since this is built into the OS, your only options are modifying the app or modding the OS, neither of which are things I’m well versed in but here’s some stuff that can get you started if you’re feeling adventurous:

    Modding the app: The way these actions work is android apps add a line in their manifest that registers them as handlers for “ACTION_PROCESS_TEXT”. Article on this.

    I’d imagine you’d want to try and find a way to remove that registration from the app’s manifest. Couldn’t tell you exactly how but I know ReVanced lets you mod apps other than YouTube, so it could help with that?

    Modding the OS: Since it’s built into the OS. If you can find the code that handles text selection actions, you could start with a custom ROM and add your own code that disables that action. Maybe even build a UI around it to help others with a similar complaint?!




  • I’ve found it actually makes it easier for advertisers to track me - I tried turning it off briefly, expecting completely random, useless ads, but instead saw disturbingly relevant ads, which basically reflected a profile of the sites I visited regularly, for example, ads for products sold by random obscure sites I visit regularly. Not only that, but the ads followed me across sites.

    Not entirely sure why that was but my guess is that by simply allowing ads to load, you’re letting ad providers like Facebook/Google collect far more identifying information to improve their confidence that you’ve visited a given site, vs by not loading them all they know is their tracking/ad script was requested. Similarly, by clicking an ad you’re now also visiting an advertiser’s site, loading even more tracking.

    For AdNauseum to achieve it’s stated purpose, it would also need to visit random sites to pollute ad providers’ profiles on you.