Build a wall around your Android™ phone with DroidWall

Author: Rodrigo Zechin Rosauro
Price: Free
System Requirements: Android Mobile 1.5 and higher

Installing an Android-based app from the Android Market is not a very big task. But when the same apps try to search for network access without any notification, then it can directly have an effect on your data consumption. There are many such apps which try to search for network access without any notification. In this way, your mobile device is liable to get connected to an erroneous network server. If you get to know about this sort of activity with any of your apps, you would either grant access to such an app or block the app.

To help you to keep a track on all the network related activities associated with installed apps on your device, you can download and install DroidWall. DroidWall is a front-end firewall tool through which you can assign rights for all the installed apps.

The moment an installed app tries to search for network rights from its server, DroidWall blocks its request. Moreover, DroidWall shows you the complete list of deployed apps which are permitted to get network access. In contrast, you also get an option to set the privileges for all the apps by creating a whitelist and a blacklist. After DroidWall is accessed from your mobile, you can get two different modes to set the privileges. Using the Whitelist option, you can allow the apps to connect to the Internet. In contrast, you can make use of the Blacklist option to block the network request of deployed apps. Some of the features of DroidWall are given below.

Some of the key features worth noting about the latest version of the app, DroidWall v1.4.9 are:

• App selection: It is very simple to pick individual apps as well as apps which exploit device features. Additionally, you can mark those apps which are executed on root.
• Special Preferences: With DroidWall, you get a variety of preferences to block the network access for Android-apps. You can block the network requests with 3G and Wi-Fi preferences. In case you only want that the apps do not use the Wi-Fi connection and connect via the 3G mode, then you can set these options through DroidWall.
• Logging option: The app has got a logging option through which you can easily make out whether DroidWall is enabled or not.
• Password integration: You can assign a password in order to secure the app rules configured in DroidWall.

DroidWall is a handy tool to manage all the apps which try to access the network server in order to get some information. However, it is important to use this app in a proper manner. If you by mistake add a security app in blacklist mode, then it will not update its definitions which could easily invite latest security threats.

To install DroidWall click here.