TC Slim – Study app tracking

Konrad Kollnig

About this app

FOLLOWING GOOGLE'S PLAY STORE POLICIES, THIS VERSION OF TRACKERCONTROL DOES NOT BLOCK TRACKING.

TrackerControl Slim is an Android app that allows users to STUDY the widespread, ongoing, hidden data collection in mobile apps about user behaviour (‘tracking’).

To detect tracking, TrackerControl combines the power of the Disconnect tracker list, used by Firefox, and our in-house tracker list, created from analysing ~2 000 000 apps!

Additionally, TrackerControl detects tracker libraries in apps using the signatures from ClassyShark3xodus/Exodus Privacy for the analysis of tracker libraries within app code.

The app also aims to educate about your rights under Data Protection Law, such the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Under the hood, TrackerControl uses Android’s VPN functionality, to analyse apps’ network communications locally on the Android device. This is accomplished through a local VPN server, to enable network traffic analysis by TrackerControl. To establish this VPN, TrackerControl expands on the work from NetGuard.

No root is required, other VPNs or Private DNS are not supported. No external VPN server is used, to keep your data safe!

Ratings and reviews

This is the best application of its kind that I have found. Feedback: the map rendering is a tiny bit off on my device but its really just a cosmetic issue. Maybe just on Lineage OS. Feature request: show more aggregate data from all trackers such as on the country maps. You guys did an incredible job on this.

Excellent app. I'm using the full version and it is brutally efficient . Ot does take a bit of patience now and then as you manually configure the whitelisted apps and features. That is not a problem simply part of the configuration and helps it do a superb job. Now a permanent fixture on my phone. Just out of interest it actually showed me that a n other app tracker I trialed was actually allowing a coupe of advertising tracker to have a sneaky look lol.

The best privacy app I have seen. This version shows you how prevalent tracking is, and which apps are the culprits. The full version, available elsewhere, actually let's you block the trackers. I'm guessing Google doesn't allow the full version in the play store because it totally circumvents their business model. Is there any way to allow this app to work with VPNs? That would make it perfect.

What's new

- clarify that version on PlayStore is 'Slim' release
- Fix 'Email' and 'Fingerprinting' categories; this enable more blocking than previously
- Sync latest NetGuard changes to increase compatibility with Android 14
- Fix bugs, and update dependencies and host lists