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What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?



 
 
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  #46  
Old January 6th 18, 06:25 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
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Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn news
When you click on each description, you get more details such as:
* Extended privacy
NewPipe does not use the YouTube API nor the Google Play Services.
This means that we do not share any data except the video URL with
YouTube or Google. Also the app does not save any data from you or
use services that analyze your usage behavior.


I just noticed they said they don't share "any" data with Google other than
the URL.

Do you think that means they don't even share your IP address?

Can NewPipe really be that good from a privacy-from-Google standpoint?

Or do we just assume our IP address *is* shared with Google?
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  #47  
Old January 6th 18, 08:55 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ralph Fox
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Posts: 474
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

On Thu, 4 Jan 2018 02:20:27 -0000 (UTC), Joe Scotch wrote:

/nIn news
At this point, I get a blue Android setup screen asking me to choose the
language, but the Windows mouse doesn't yet put a cursor inside the Android
window except for the menus on the VM window.

So that's all I need to debug now.


The mouse is strange.

And, for some reason, the Guest Additions ISO won't work either.
C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

But Android is up, a Google Play account was created, and I ran Android
software on Windows following these tutorials for installing Android 7
Nougat on Windows
http://www.wikigain.com/install-andr...-nougat-on-pc/
http://www.wikigain.com/install-andr...on-virtualbox/

Using those articles, I now have Android 7.1 running inside of Windows.
http://i.cubeupload.com/hb3lIb.jpg

I've used Google Play to install Android software in the virtual machine,
and it seems to work.
http://i.cubeupload.com/LhQbwD.jpg

The mouse is quirky, and I can't get the Guest Additions ISO to work but so
far those are the only glitches.
http://i.cubeupload.com/pXkXrr.png



For VMware it is like this. VirtualBox sounds similar.

1. There are no Guest Additions for Android. (The ISO does not
have an Android version of the Guest Additions.)

1.1 One cannot install the Guest Additions in Android.

1.2 One gets the VM fallback mouse behaviour for when guest
additions are not installed.

2. Mouse integration is not quite as seamless without guest
additions.

2.1 One clicks inside the virtual machine (VM client window
area), and the mouse now belongs to the guest. Moving the
mouse now moves the guest's mouse pointer. At this point
all mouse pointer movement is confined to inside the virtual
machine.

2.2 One then presses Ctrl+Alt together, and the VM releases the
mouse back to the host. Moving the mouse now moves the
host's mouse pointer. One can now move the mouse pointer
outside the VM and click on things in the host. One might
see a frozen guest mouse pointer, which does not move with
the mouse (until one goes back to 2.1).



--
Kind regards
Ralph
  #48  
Old January 6th 18, 09:45 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

For VMWare, guest additions are called VMWare Tools.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/340

For Linux (which Android is a variant), they give instructions on how to
install VMware Tools at:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1018414

The ****er is that for Windows a driver gets installed which is easy but
for Linux you have to "install" their VMware Tools and then compile them
(see Notes under step 10). They mention having to run VMWare Tools in
the background which would be a pain on every boot of the guest OS. You
would have to schedule the program to load on startup or login or make
it a startup program.

For VirtualBox, they describe how to install their Guest Additions at:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E36500_01...additions.html

Obviously per their description, that is for installing a driver in a
guest running Windows. Then I found:

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html

The Linux section doesn't mention having to compile anything; however,
it also does not list Android as a supported Linux OS. From:

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=42240
"Android is not a supported Guest OS, so there are no GA. Also, it
doesn't meet the requirements for guest addition support: you can't
install support packages for the kernel to make kernel modules."
(dated 2011 - so don't know if there's been a change)

Later posts, like:

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=83722

reinforce that there are no Virtualbox Guest Additions for Android.
Android was open source in the past; see:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/debunki...d-open-source/

Well, do an online search on "Google Android closed source" and you'll
find plenty of article warning that Google is going proprietary (closed
source), like:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/0...ary_heres_how/

So there's even less chance of Oracle or someone else spending time to
figure out how to write OS interfaces to drivers in the VMM (virtual
machine manager) or pass-through drivers.
  #49  
Old January 6th 18, 10:00 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

Joe Scotch wrote:

Joe Scotch wrote:

When you click on each description, you get more details such as:
* Extended privacy
NewPipe does not use the YouTube API nor the Google Play Services.
This means that we do not share any data except the video URL with
YouTube or Google. Also the app does not save any data from you or
use services that analyze your usage behavior.


I just noticed they said they don't share "any" data with Google other
than the URL. Do you think that means they don't even share your IP
address? Can NewPipe really be that good from a privacy-from-Google
standpoint? Or do we just assume our IP address *is* shared with
Google?


NewPipe is not running some server as a proxy (e.g., Opera with their
pseudo-VPN or Google with their data saving feature in their mobile
Chrome web browser). Your endpoint host is connecting to YouTube. Any
host to which you connect *must* know your IP address. Even if you use
a VPN service, the VPN provider must know your IP address (and to where
you request them to connect - so they could track your web surfing if
they wanted or were forced).

NewPipe is just an app, not an anonymizing proxy server. When you use a
web browser to go to, say, intel.com then that site's server knows your
IP address. It's necessary for them to know where to send an
acknowledge for the connection request, do the SSL handshaking, and to
return the data your client requested.

Despite the vague description of this app, it is stll a web client, just
like a web browser. It connects to the Youtube site, scrapes the screen
or parses elements out of the web page (document) delivered by their
server, and then presents its own custom UI that you see. Just like a
web browser, this web client still connects to Youtube which means
Youtube knows your IP address - unless you configure your Android device
to use a VPN or some anonymizing proxy but Youtube will still see the IP
address of the exit point of the VPN or for the anonymizing proxy (and
there are blacklists of those which means a site may ban you from
connecting to them from those services).

They have to give the URL you requested to YouTube so YouTube knows
*WHAT* to deliver back to you via NewPipe. They aren't involved in the
network connection. They rely on the network API provided by the OS,
and the OS is going to establish the connection to YouTube. That means
YouTube knows the IP address of your Android device so, again, YouTube
knows *WHERE* to send back the data that you requested.

It's just an app.
  #50  
Old January 6th 18, 06:03 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn , Ralph Fox
wrote:

For VMware it is like this. VirtualBox sounds similar.

1. There are no Guest Additions for Android. (The ISO does not
have an Android version of the Guest Additions.)

1.1 One cannot install the Guest Additions in Android.

1.2 One gets the VM fallback mouse behaviour for when guest
additions are not installed.

2. Mouse integration is not quite as seamless without guest
additions.

2.1 One clicks inside the virtual machine (VM client window
area), and the mouse now belongs to the guest. Moving the
mouse now moves the guest's mouse pointer. At this point
all mouse pointer movement is confined to inside the virtual
machine.

2.2 One then presses Ctrl+Alt together, and the VM releases the
mouse back to the host. Moving the mouse now moves the
host's mouse pointer. One can now move the mouse pointer
outside the VM and click on things in the host. One might
see a frozen guest mouse pointer, which does not move with
the mouse (until one goes back to 2.1).


It seems the quirks are similar between VirtualBox and VMWare.

In VirtualBox, the mouse is so hellish that it's the *major* flaw in the
setup, unless there's a trick to get the mouse to behave.

It takes *dozens* of steps to get past a multiple-click screen, such as the
Android setup screens are. It just does. It defies comprehension, and it
certainly defies an easy description.

The hellish mouse cursor works, but it's quirky as all hell. It will select
the wrong things so many times that it's not funny. You have to hold down
the left mouse button but the range of motion of the cursor is only one
small area on the Android screen - maybe 1/5th or 1/6th of the screen. So
you're constantly moving the mouse and then lifting up and then moving it.

That wouldn't be so bad if the cursor would start the second time where you
put it, but it doesn't. It's only sort of kind of in that spot you last
left it.

That too wouldn't be so bad if a scroll screen didn't occur - but when they
do, you end up constantly scrolling incorrectly, and selection buttons go
on and off because the mouse seems to start pseudo randomly on the screen.

So you move the mouse cursor constantly, where a multi-click screen takes
at least ten times the minimum clicks, and often twenty times that,
depending on the complexity of the screen.

There *must* be a trick to this mouse inside the Android window inside of
VirtualBox on Windows, because it's completely unusable as it stands.

Certainly the VirtualBox mouse additions is not the trick.

Maybe the guest additions ISO will solve it - but I can't get it to
install.
  #51  
Old January 6th 18, 06:13 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn , VanguardLH wrote:

NewPipe is not running some server as a proxy


I didn't think so, but then they said they don't "share" anything with
Google except the URL. I guess there are variations of "nothing else" here,
because I too always figured Google had my IP address.

NewPipe is just an app, not an anonymizing proxy server.


I don't disagree - but there's that sentence that says the only thing they
share with Google is the URL.

So it's not clear in their words that they also "share" your IP address
(which I had assumed they did, all along).

Despite the vague description of this app, it is stll a web client, just
like a web browser. It connects to the Youtube site, scrapes the screen
or parses elements out of the web page (document) delivered by their
server, and then presents its own custom UI that you see.


This description makes sense.

Just like a
web browser, this web client still connects to Youtube which means
Youtube knows your IP address - unless you configure your Android device
to use a VPN


Let's keep VPN or proxies out of this as that's just a minor complexity.

I agree with you that they *must* "share" you IP address and URL.
How can they not?

As you said, they're not a central proxy server (AFAIK).

They have to give the URL you requested to YouTube so YouTube knows
*WHAT* to deliver back to you via NewPipe. They aren't involved in the
network connection.


I guess that's how they get away with saying they only "share" the URL,
since they're "not involved in the network connection".

They should be more clear on that because it's not obvious to all.

It's just an app.


Yup. Thanks. It's not a proxy (and I had never thought it was).
They confused me by that "we never share anything but the URL" stuff.
  #52  
Old January 6th 18, 06:20 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
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Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn news
They confused me by that "we never share anything but the URL" stuff.


F-Droid NewPipe really should say something like:
* Google never sees anything from you other than your IP address & the URL.

That is, Google doesn't see your account name (because it doesn't exist),
nor your subscriptions (because they're stored locally), nor your history
(per se, unless Google stores it on their servers - which they almost
certainly do but based on your IP address).
  #53  
Old January 7th 18, 12:02 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

Joe Scotch wrote:

So it's not clear in their words that they also "share" your IP address
(which I had assumed they did, all along).


They don't have your IP address to share or not share it. They didn't
create it. They don't manage it. They don't care what is your IP
address. Their app isn't what negotiates your OS with a DHCP server to
obtain a dynamic IP address nor is their app involved in the OS
configuration for a static IP address. They cannot share what they
never created, don't manage, and don't care about. Their app is not
involved at the network level.

Their app operates at the Application level issuing system API calls to
perform high-level networking functions. In the 4-layer DARPA
networking model, their app operates at the Application level, not at
the Transport, Internet, or Network Interface levels. In the 7-layer
OSI networking model, the lowest their app might be involved is at the
Presentation level (not a user-visible GUI but charset encoding,
encryption, etc regarding the data construction) but most likely is
involved only at the Application level. The OS and its support libs
handle the networking. The app isn't involved in all that.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/.../cc958821.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2307006,00.asp
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2307007,00.asp
  #54  
Old January 7th 18, 04:33 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
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Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn , VanguardLH wrote:

They don't have your IP address to share or not share it.


I understand what you're explaining, which is that the network is separate.

All that matters to me, from a privacy standpoint, is only what the NewPipe
people get and what Google get by way of my information.

Am I correct that the NewPipe site gets nothing whatsoever when you
download or watch a movie - but Google gets both your URL and IP address
but that's it for Google.

BTW, for Windows syntax for the youtube-dl.exe, here is the manpage:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...tube-dl.1.html

These are some common examples:

1. To extract the audio from a video as MP3:
youtube-dl.exe -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 URL

2. To extract the audio from a video as M4A:
youtube-dl.exe -f 140 URL

3. To download the video in whatever format it's already in:
youtube-dl.exe URL

4. To download the video as an MP4:
youtube-dl.exe -f 18 URL

5. To download videos based on a file containing a list of URLs:
youtube-dl.exe -citw -a MyListOfUrls.txt
WARNING: --title is deprecated.
Use -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s" instead.

youtube-dl.exe -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a MyListOfUrls.txt

Example:
youtube-dl.exe -o "c:\myvideos\%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s" -f best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV3MXD7pzkw



Reference: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl#ou...plate-examples

There are over a thousands supported sites (far more than just YouTube):
https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html
  #55  
Old January 7th 18, 12:18 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Andy Burns[_6_]
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Posts: 1,318
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for runningF-Droid APKs?

Joe Scotch wrote:

Am I correct that the NewPipe site gets nothing whatsoever when you
download or watch a movie - but Google gets both your URL and IP address
but that's it for Google.


Should be, assuming newpipe doesn't leak any information, google could
guess which content producers you're interested in, even if they don't
know you're 'subscribed' to them.

Are you sure you're not overdoing it on effort taken up by privacy paranoia?
  #56  
Old January 7th 18, 09:46 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
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Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn news wrote:

No, they (or the proxy server between them and you) has your IP, else
you won't get the movie. And to serve up the movie you're watching, they
must pass one your request, which translates into some ID for that
movie. So....


Thanks for the confirmation.

In summary, it seems that New Pipe is a perfectly good tool for both
privacy and YouTube Red functionality (you get a free $600 Android phone
every five years if you use NewPipe instead of YouTube Red).

To give back to the team with tribal knowledge, I can agree with anyone who
said that Android emulation using VirtualBox is utterly miserable. It's not
so much that it's far slower than Ubuntu emulation on Windows inside of
VirtualBox - but the MOUSE INTEGRATION in the Android emulation in
VirtualBox is utterly horrid. It's just not usable.

Sure, it works - but it takes five to ten times as many clicks and
movements of the mouse than it should take, especially on scrolled forms
and on/off switches where the arbitrary landing of the mouse constantly
hits the wrong switch.

I have a query over on the VirtualBox forum asking if this is just me and
my setup - so maybe there's a simple solution - but it's not obvious to me
yet.

Meanwhile, the power of the suggested use of AdBlock has been demonstrated
by me in that it was easy to install in a Windows browser by way of
comparison that it's not funny, and it instantly blocked all the "in-video"
YouTube ads.

Combined with the power of the youtube-dl.exe command line executable, the
Windows user gets the two major functionalities that New Pipe has:
1. They get no ads with AdBlock
2. They download and extract with Youtube-dl.exe

Certainly, on Windows, those two solutions are easier than running New Pipe
in emulation on Windows (although I didn't try Bluestack because I try to
make general solutions work and don't often give up on them too soon).

The one nagging issue is that the youtube-dl.exe doesn't have, IMHO, any
decent GUI that doesn't require either Java or Python, neither of which do
I want to install on my Windows system.

So if anyone out there in the tribe knows of a YouTube-dl.exe GUI that is
Python-free and Java-free, we will all benefit from what you know.
  #57  
Old January 7th 18, 09:46 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Joe Scotch
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Posts: 108
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for running F-Droid APKs?

/nIn , Andy Burns
wrote:

Are you sure you're not overdoing it on effort taken up by privacy paranoia?


Privacy is like washing your Romaine lettuce before you use it.
http://www.ntd.tv/2018/01/04/consume...coli-outbreak/

Does every head of lettuce have E Coli contamination.
Nope.

But some do.
https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2011/romai...e-3-23-12.html

What's so hard about "thinking" first and washing before consuming lettuce?

Same with privacy. Think first. Wash it. Then consume it.
  #58  
Old January 8th 18, 03:05 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for runningF-Droid APKs?

Joe Scotch wrote:


Privacy is like washing your Romaine lettuce before you use it.
http://www.ntd.tv/2018/01/04/consume...coli-outbreak/


....Using tap water with Escherichia Coli in it.

The browsers you're using, you have no idea what's
inside them, or how safe they are. The same goes
for the VPNs or the software you're using with
those VPNs.

If you wrote the software yourself, maybe you'd have good reason
to be smug. But as long as a dozen people grab a copy of Chrome,
change two lines of code, and put their name on it and make
a dozen "new" browsers, what's up with that ?

I think the Chromium tree I have on the other machine,
has 600,000 files on it. Have all the browser derivative people,
actually even opened those files ? How many of those files could
you read per day ?

That's why I find this hobby of yours to be largely delusional.

You could attempt to study the network traffic... assuming
you knew how to break the SSL/TLS and render the content in
plaintext before it's sent. I understand that is doable, but
it's outside my pay scale to do it.

Paul
  #59  
Old January 8th 18, 05:36 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Andy Burns[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,318
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for runningF-Droid APKs?

Paul wrote:

You could attempt to study the network traffic... assuming
you knew how to break the SSL/TLS and render the content in
plaintext before it's sent. I understand that is doable


I've never got round to seeing if this method still works

https://jimshaver.net/2015/02/11/decrypting-tls-browser-traffic-with-wireshark-the-easy-way/
  #60  
Old January 8th 18, 08:36 AM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default What free Android emulator do YOU use on Windows for runningF-Droid APKs?

Andy Burns wrote:
Paul wrote:

You could attempt to study the network traffic... assuming
you knew how to break the SSL/TLS and render the content in
plaintext before it's sent. I understand that is doable


I've never got round to seeing if this method still works

https://jimshaver.net/2015/02/11/decrypting-tls-browser-traffic-with-wireshark-the-easy-way/


That's a handy trick I'm going to have to try out
one of these days. Noted. And thanks.

Paul
 




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