New WiFiKill supports ICS and JB but stops after 5 minutes unless you pay

WiFiKill turns your Android phone or tablet into a rogue access point that lets you kill internet access for any device that falls into your trap. You can simply drop packets to keep your target devices offline, or redirect them to any IP address you like. That could be a page that reads "ur fone is haz been pwn3d muahahahaha," but it could also be a fake PayPal login page if you're really evil and you like to spend some time in jail.

You can use WiFiKill to keep your neighbors off your network, to steal Facebook passwords, to kick everyone in your local Starbucks off the internet, or to be the obnoxious spotty teen that puts your entire school offline because all the girls run off with the other guys.

It works on all WiFi networks that your phone or tablet can connect to, whether they're encrypted or not. But before you go on a killing spree, keep in mind that WiFiKill doesn't spoof your MAC address. The local network administrator will ban your device if he has a working brain cell, and WiFiKill can land you in court or out of a job or both.

The old WiFiKill had one tiny little problem. It worked without any problem on Gingerbread, Froyo, and earlier, but on Android 4.x (Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean) you had to switch off your phones WiFi before stopping WiFiKill, otherwise it would make your phone reboot.

Todays update solves this problem. You can now safely kill WiFiKill no matter what flavour of Android you run.

Too bad the update comes at a price. The old WiFiKill would run for as long as you'd like, but the new edition stops working after 5 minutes unless you pay for it. And its developer promised to add even more limitations to the free version later on. The new WiFiKill only works on Android 4+, so if you run an older version you'll need the old version of the app.

WiFiKill is for sale in the Google Play Store for now, but it's a likely candidate for getting booted out of the Google app store. And then you may end up paying for a dead app. The free versions have ads, but they're easy to kill.

Want to protect yourself against WiFiKill? Then Wifi Protector is your friend and your enemies enemy. Bonus tip: WiFiKill auto-checks for updates and this feature doesn't come with an off switch, but if you block WiFiKill with DroidWall it keeps working without auto-updating.

• New WiFiKill (free, Android 4+ only, five minute limit)
• Old WiFiKill (free, no limits)
• WiFiKill on xda

Useful tools to add to WiFiKill:
• AdAway
• DroidWall
• Wifi Protector

Hideman VPN bribes you to cheat the Play Store rating system

Some app makers try to inflate their Play Store ratings by offering freebees for rave reviews and fake stars.

Bloat Freezer by Trey Holland even used the mafia status bar spammers of Airpush to blackmail you into giving it five Play Store stars, but Google didn't allow the scam and kicked the app out of its app store.

And now Hideman VPN tries something similar. Nope, they don't blackmail you with Airpush, but they promise some free hours on their virtual private network in exchange for your stars. It's a bit like all those companies that hand out freebees if you "like" them on Facebook, even if you don't like them at all. You get a handout from them, they get free advertising from you.

Needless to say, using bribes to increase your star count makes the Play Store rating system totally useless. You can't trust a high rating if the stars are handed out in exchange for some free stuff. If Google wants to maintain the integrity of its rating system, it should not allow app developers to use such tactics.

If you want to take advantage of the bonus hours without undermining the integrity of the rating system, pocket the free VPN hours and then change your rating back to reflect what you really think about the app. It's a win-win situation: you collect the bonus, the rating system remains somewhat useful.

• Hideman VPN

Hotspot Shield VPN adds fake quit button and goes online behind your back, use Hideman VPN instead

Shoot the messenger

Sometimes you can't trust the local WiFi connection but you need to check your mail anyway. That's when Virtual Private Networks are useful. They solve the old problem of keeping your messages secret when you can't trust the messenger.

A VPN app encrypts your internet traffic before it gets sent to the WiFi router. Vice versa, the VPN server returns your web traffic in encrypted form and only your phone can decrypt it. This way a rogue access point can't steal your data, although the VPN service can.

VPN servers usually want your money for their services, but there are some free options. Hideman VPN gives you 5 hours of secure internet for free. Hotspot Shield VPN doesn't have any time limits. Too bad it doesn't know when to stop.

Won't go away

Old versions of Hotspot Shield had an exit button to shut down the app. Updates removed the option to quit the program, so its background service would keep running and your notification bar would stay polluted with its very ugly red icon.

Needless to say, negative Play Store ratings and matching comments started piling up, so Hotspot Shield brought the quit button back.

Well, sort of.

The quit button doesn't work. It removes the red icon from your status bar, but the app keeps running. Most apps stay inactive when you dismiss them, but Hotspot Shield keeps kicking when it shouldn't.

When you quit Hotspot Shield its red status bar icon returns after a while, all by itself. And if you look at your network traffic you'll find that Hotspot Shield phones home after it should have been shut down. It comes with a lot of autostart triggers too. Autostart on boot. Autostart on installing, updating, and removing apps. And it won't let you switch any of these autostart triggers off.

As for the data it sends out when it's not supposed to be running, the makers of Hotspot Shield don't tell you what's in those packets.

Tame or kill

You can kill all of Hotspot Shields unwanted behaviour by uninstalling the app. Competing app Hideman VPN doesn't autostart on boot, and when you exit the app you really exit the app. It doesn't spoil your notification bar with ugly icons either.

But Hideman only gives you five free hours of VPN per week. If you want more, you can try to keep Hotspot Shield under control.

When you quit Hotspot Shield it keeps running in the background, but if you switch WiFi off Hotspot Shield goes away. If you switch WiFi back on the app stays away, at least for a while, because it doesn't (yet) have a network state autorun trigger.

You can try to switch its autorun triggers off. Not from within the app, but Gemini App Manager is a very useful tool to tame Hotspot Shield and other unruly apps.

And of course you can always force the app away with the force stop button in the Android application settings. Or automate it with a third party tool, because Hotspot Shield VPN is one of the reasons why task killers sometimes make sense.

Update: Even when I switched off all autostart functions that I could find, Hotspot Shield kept relaunching its background process (called AF Service), and the red icon kept coming back to my status bar. Hotspot Shield kept going online even though I was not using its VPN service, which is totally unacceptable. Judging from the Play Store comments I'm not the only one.

Because Hotspot Shield VPN behaves like malware it is no longer installed on my phone. The five hours per week from Hideman VPN are enough for me, and their quit button really works.

• Hotspot Shield VPN (very intrusive autostart behaviour)
• Hideman VPN (only runs when you want it to run)

• control autostart triggers with Gemini App Manager

Hideman VPN and Hotspot Shield VPN: surf safe over unsafe internet connections

Ancient problem: how do you send confidential information when you can't trust the messenger? Modern solution: virtual private networks turn unsafe traffic on public WiFi in bars and coffeeshops into secure encrypted connections. Unfortunately most VPN services want your money, but there are some exceptions. Hideman VPN and Hotspot Shield give you VPN for free, usually at decent speed.

Hideman VPN gives you 5 hours of secure internet per week for free. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough for online banking and shopping. For most other web surfing you don't need a secure connection, so five free hours a week will do the job for almost everyone.

The app is so simple that anyone can VPN on Android. Launch, connect, go online, and disconnect when you're done. Connection speed varies, but in my tests it's adequate for surfing the web, email, and doing stuff with your Android online banking app. It's too slow for video streams or downloading movies and music, but why would you need a VPN for that if you're on public WiFi?

Hotspot Shield VPN doesn't have any time limits. It's ad-supported, but I've never seen an ad in this app. I guess AdAway is doing what it's meant to do ;)
Minor problem: Hotspot Shield can be really slow (disconnecting and reconnecting usually speeds things up a bit), but slow and safe is better than fast and leaky. Major problem: Hotspot Shield doesn't have an off switch and keeps a big ugly red icon in your notification bar. Hotspot Shield is one of the reasons why task killers can be useful.

Hideman VPN is better than Hotspot Shield, but it's a good idea to keep both apps. When your free hours on Hideman run out you can switch to Hotspot Shield for a slower but functional secure connection.

To check that your VPN connection is working as it should, head to ip.cih.ms before and after you switch on your VPN app. The IP address reported by ip.cih.ms should change when you connect to a VPN.

• Hideman VPN
• Hotspot Shield VPN

Hotspot Shield VPN loses quit button, uninstall button takes over

If you have a promiscuous phone that jumps on any open WiFi network whenever it can, your Android device works as advertised.

Unfortunately there's a risk. The WiFi network may be set up by someone trying to grab your passwords, or it may simply be leaky because security is not set up properly.

Enter Virtual Private Networks. These are secure tunnels in unsecure networks. Even if the messenger cannot be trusted, a VPN ensures that the messenger can't read your message.

VPN usually costs money, because your data has to travel through a secure server and bandwidth doesn't come for free. But there are free options.

Hotspot Shield VPN tunnels your data for free. Well, not really free, because the app has ads from banner farms that want to track your surfing behaviour, but those are easy to get rid of.

The bad news: it doesn't work for everyone. Some people report that Hotspot Shield VPN killed their internet connection, so make sure you backup your WiFi settings before you let Hotspot Shield VPN do its thing.

The good news: Hotspot Shield VPN works for me. It's a bit slow, but if the alternative is feeding my passwords into an unencrypted public WiFi network I'd rather trade in some speed to keep my private data private.

The app is not designed very well. Its user interface needs some polishing, and the latest update (to version 0.4.13) made things even more of a mess. The old "quit" button is gone. You can shut down Hotspot Shield VPN with a task killer when you're done with it, or you can hit the uninstall button that's built into the app. The button doesn't uninstall anything, but it shuts down the app like the old quit button used to do.
Update: Hotspot Shield VPN added a deceptive quit button that doesn't work.

Maybe the next update will clean things up again?

• Hotspot Shield VPN

Security app updates: Wifi Protector, DroidWall, Lookout

Wifi Protector

WiFiKill is a tool that turns Android phones into rogue access points. The first version could break internet connections of all devices connected to the same router. An update allows attackers to redirect their victims to any IP address of their choice. This makes it possible to spy on you, steal your passwords, and more. And there are other apps that do the same evil things.

Wifi Protector detects rogue access points, and if your phone is rooted it can protect you against their evilness. Like all security apps Wifi Protector is not 100% waterproof, but the latest update does a better job than the previous versions.

Wifi Protector costs a euro if you get it from the Android Market, but it's free if you download it from the xda forum. You can't use the Android Market to update the free version, so you'll need to get the new APK from xda and install it over the old copy.

• more about Wifi Protector (android underground)
• Wifi Protector (xda forum, free, download link at the bottom of the opening post)
• Wifi Protector (gurkedev, not free)


DroidWall

Many Android apps demand full internet access to collect usage stats and other info, to show ads from banner farms that track your location and online behaviour, and to do other things that you may not want them to do.

DroidWall is an outgoing firewall for Android that lets you revoke the internet permission that you didn't want to hand out to begin with. You can tell apps not to use WiFi, to stay away from cellular data, or both. The latest version added a bit of eye candy (application icons in the app list) and lists new apps on top of the list so you don't have to scroll all over the place to keep your freshly installed apps offline. There's a price to pay, though. Although the changelog promises that the app list doesn't reload when it doesn't need to, I often have to wait a long time before my list of apps loads since the update. Maybe the app icons or moving new apps to the top slow things down more than expected?

Update: the latest version loads the icons in a background process, so you can edit your app list before the icons are done loading.

DroidWall has one major flaw: when you boot your phone blocked apps may start before DroidWall does, so there's a brief period in which DroidWall can be leaky. It's probably due to the way Android is set up, but it's annoying anyway.

• DroidWall (Google code)
• DroidWall (Android Market)

Update: DroidWall out, AFWall+ in. Unlike DroidWall, AFWall+ doesn't leak when you boot your phone.


Lookout

Whether Android antivirus apps are useful or useless is a topic of hot debate. Some people argue that bad apps are kicked out of the Android Market before the antivirus apps learn how to detect them. On the other hand, you can't exclude the possibility that an antivirus app updates its virus database before Google cleans up its shop. If you install apps from other sources an antivirus app will definitely add a much needed extra layer of protection.

Just keep in mind that no antivirus app catches everything. Lookout, the most popular free antivirus app for Android, is no exception. It's good at catching test viruses, but you never know how long a real virus manages to escape detection in the wild.

But even though you shouldn't rely too much on virus scanners, there are other reasons to get a copy of Lookout. The free version can back up your contacts, so you can keep an extra copy in addition to your Google backup. If your phone goes missing, Lookout can locate it and make it scream. The latest update fixes some bugs, but the makers of Lookout didn't say which bugs.

• Lookout (Android Market)

Kill WiFiKill with Wifi Protector

WiFiKill turns Android phones into rogue access points that can hijack your WiFi to break your internet, spy on you, steal passwords, and more. And there are other apps that do the same evil things.

But you can fight back! Wifi Protector looks for suspicious network behaviour and warns you when things smell fishy. If your phone is rooted, it can protect you against attacks in addition to warning you.

Wifi Protector doesn't always detect bad access points. It knows when a good access point turns bad, but it won't protect you if the network is already compromised when you connect to it for the first time. If a known network (or the network at your office or school) goes bad Wifi Protector will usually do the job, but when you walk into a coffeeshop with an unknown network already under attack Wifi Protector doesn't always see the danger.

Even though it's a bit leaky, Wifi Protector adds an extra layer of security which is better than nothing, and the latest update gives you a chance to detect an ongoing attack. Just keep in mind that it shouldn't be used as a substitute for your brain. The same goes for all security apps, because no safety net is completely without holes.

Autostart is optional. If you move out of a suspect location into a safe place the background service keeps running. Wifi Protector eats a lot of memory (and causes a bit of network traffic), so if you want to save memory and battery you'll have to close it yourself. The off switch is hidden in the menu of the expert mode screen. It would be better if there was an off button in the main screen.

Wifi Protector costs a euro if you get it from the Android Market, but it's free if you download it from the xda forum.

• Wifi Protector (xda forum, free, download link at the bottom of the opening post)
• Wifi Protector (gurkedev, not free)

Other apps to protect your phone against the bad guys:
• LBE Privacy Guard
• DroidWall
• AdAway

Even more evil: WiFiKill lets you kidnap your victims to your IP address

How to be an obnoxious little brat?

WiFiKill turns your phone into a rogue WiFi access point. It drops the packets of every computer, phone, tablet or other device that you choose to block, so if you want to keep your boss, kids, neighbours, or everyone else around you offline then WiFiKill is your weapon. You can kill all wireless networks that you can connect to, no matter if they're encrypted or not.

More evil

The latest update lets you be even more evil. You can still make your victims think the network is broken, but now you can also redirect unsuspecting surfers to any IP address you like. Virus servers, spam sites, fake login screens, or just an innocent "pwn3d! ur internets are belong to us" page, anything goes. If you want to be an annoying teenage douchebag nothing can stop you, no matter how old you are.

Well, something can stop you. WiFiKill doesn't spoof your MAC address (not yet, but who knows what the next update will bring?) so you may get caught, kicked from the network, lose your job, or get shot at dawn. If you have a brain, switch it on before you switch on WiFiKill. If you don't have a brain then go buy an iPhone.

Another new feature: WiFiKill checks for updates on launch. You can't switch it off, but if you're really paranoid (and you should be!) you can block the update URL in your Android hosts file. You can either edit your hosts file with a text editor, or just use the blacklist option of AdAway. Even easier: block WiFiKill with DroidWall. This disables the update check, but you can still use the app to kill the internet of those around you.

Bad advice

Redirecting traffic to your IP needs a bit of digging in the dirt. Fire up the settings screen, scroll down to the killing rules, switch "use iptables" on, choose the "drop + redirect" method, and then set the IP address to which you want to redirect your friends (soon to be your enemies).

WiFiKill loads a long list of hardware vendors so you can see who made the devices connected to the network. This is real slow, so disable the vendor list if you don't want to wait. You'll only see MAC addresses, not device types, so switch the vendor list back on if you want to kick all iPhones offline without touching the Androids. And keep in mind that WiFiKill also kills your battery because it turns your phone into a bad router. Your phone and your battery will get hammered by every device that connects to you.

You need a rooted phone to play evil games with WiFiKill. Needless to say, Google booted the app off its market real quick so you have to download the APK from somewhere else. The free version has ads, but it's easy to kill them.

• There are different versions of WiFiKill. To find out which version suits you check out this new story on the new (and old) WiFiKill.

WiFi Probe finds open networks that really work

There are plenty of open WiFi networks around, but not all of them are really open. Many networks that are not locked down with WPA or WEP redirect your web browser to a login page or pay screen. They look open to your phone, but they're not.

WiFi Probe takes WiFi scanning a step further. It looks for open networks, and then checks if if they are really open, i.e. free to use without having to log in.

WiFi Probe is very simple, very fast, and very useful in cities where the real open networks are buried in a sky full of unencrypted networks that won't let you go online.

There's one problem with WiFi Probe: it doesn't remember. That's why it is a good idea to use WiFi Probe together with Wi-Fi Ruler, an app that remembers the networks it encounters and lets you choose whether to connect to them in the future or avoid them like the plague.

The ultimate WiFi app would combine the functions of WiFi Probe and Wi-Fi Ruler. Until then, use both of 'em.

• WiFi Probe (Android Market)
• Wi-Fi Ruler

Be evil, destroy wireless networks with WiFiKill

Are people abusing your wireless network? Do you want to keep your kids offline at night? Do you want to break the network of your school, office, or local coffeeshop?

Then WiFiKill is your weapon.

WiFiKill turns your phone into a rogue access point that drops the packets of every computer, phone, tablet or other device that you choose to block. You can keep your boss offline, throw your teachers out of the school network, cut your husbands access to online porn, or simply disable internet connections for each and every device made by Apple, Inc.

You don't even need to own the network (although WiFiKill lets you p3wn it), because it works on all wireless networks that you can connect to, whether they're encrypted or not.

You get a choice of methods to play the bad guy. The default method will simply drop all packets for the devices that you select. If you enable IP tables you can reject packets or redirect all requests to a bogus IP address (like the loopback address 127.0.0.1). You can't redirect traffic to an address of your choice, which is a good thing since this would allow you to send everyone on the network to a virus server.

Update: WiFiKill got even more deadly. Now you can redirect your victims to your fake PayPal login screen.

There is a price to pay, however. Since your victims believe your phone is the router, your WiFi will get flooded. If you block everyone on a large network you'll get so much incoming traffic on your phone that your own internet connection will suffer and your battery will drain like crazy.

WiFiKill doesn't spoof your MAC address, so you may get caught. And even if you get away, your phone will probably be banned forever by the network administrator. Worse yet, the network owner can just wait until you return to the network later and send out some sort of identifiable information like an email address or Facebook login. Of course WiFiKill can also get you expelled, fired, dumped, divorced, locked up, or murdered, so don't go killing networks at random.

By default WiFiKill loads a long list of hardware vendors so you can see who made the devices connected to the network. This list loads real slow, but you can speed up the app by disabling the vendor list. If you do so, you'll only see MAC addresses, not device types.

WiFiKill needs a rooted phone to work and is was available for free in the Android Market. Google may kick it out kicked it out, just like they kicked out another app by the same developer (which hacked into Facebook accounts), but there are other places to get it. The app has ads, but it's easy to get rid of them.

Update: WiFiKill got booted off the Android Market, but you can download the free version straight from its maker.

• Things change. Go read all about the new WiFiKill.

• Protect yourself against WiFiKill with Wifi Protector

Wi-Fi Ruler keeps your phone away from bad networks

There are plenty of Android WiFi managers that tell your phone which networks to use, but what about an app that tells your phone which networks to ignore?

Rogue access points, public networks that look open but send you to a payment page, or the routers of your neighbours that spill their waves into your house, there are plenty of WiFi networks out there that you want your phone to stay away from.

Enter Wi-Fi Ruler. Its interface is barren, its icon is ugly, but it does a good job at keeping your phone out of unwanted networks. You can feed it a list of networks that it should never touch. Of course you can also tell it which networks it should connect to whenever possible, and its network priority slider lets you fine tune things even more.

The latest update does a better job at finding out if you switch WiFi on or off outside Wi-Fi Ruler, like when you toggle WiFi from a widget or with a scheduling app.

Wi-Fi Ruler still has some issues to deal with. Sometimes when you try to set rules for a network it remembered it refuses to do so. It won't let you export your rules to share with other devices either, although you can work around this by sending Titanium backups to your other Android gadgets.

Tip for users of DroidWall, LBE Privacy Guard, etc.: Wi-Fi Ruler does not need permission to go online. If you firewall the app it will keep working.

• Wi-Fi Ruler (Android Market)