PCAPdroid vs TrackerControl
Side-by-side comparison of two open source alternatives
PCAPdroid
PCAPdroid is a privacy-friendly app which lets you track and analyze the connections made by the other apps in your device. It also allows you to export a PCAP dump of the traffic, inspect HTTP, decrypt TLS traffic and much more. PCAPdroid simulates a VPN in order to capture the network traffic without root. It does not use a remote VPN server, instead data is processed locally on the device. Features: * Log and examine the connections made by user and system apps * Extract the SNI, DNS query, HTTP URL and the remote IP address * Inspect HTTP requests and replies thanks to the built-in decoders * Inspect the full connections payload as hexdump/text * Decrypt the HTTPS/TLS traffic and export the SSLKEYLOGFILE * Dump the traffic to a PCAP file, download it from a browser, or stream it to a remote receiver for real-time analysis (e.g. Wireshark) * Create rules to filter out the good traffic and easily spot anomalies * Identify the country and ASN of remote server via offline DB lookups * On rooted devices, capture the traffic while other VPN apps are running If you plan to use PCAPdroid to perform packet analysis, please check out the specific section of the manual. Join the PCAPdroid international community on Telegram or on Matrix.
TrackerControl
TrackerControl allows users to monitor and control the widespread, ongoing, hidden data collection in mobile apps about user behaviour ('tracking').To detect tracking, TrackerControl combines the power of the Disconnect blocklist, used by Firefox, and our in-house blocklist is used, created from analysing ~2 000 000 apps! Additionally, TrackerControl supports custom blocklists.This approachreveals the companies behind tracking,allows to block tracking selectively, andexposes the purposes of tracking, such as analytics or advertising.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.No root is required, other VPNs or Private DNS are not supported. No external VPN server is used, to keep your data safe! TrackerControl even protects you against DNS cloaking, a popular technique to hide trackers in websites and apps.TrackerControl will always be free and open source, being a research project.
| Feature | PCAPdroid | TrackerControl |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later | GPL-3.0-only |
| Install sources | F-DroidGitHub | F-DroidGitHubIzzyOnDroid |
| Categories | Password ManagerDev ToolsBrowser | Password ManagerFirewallDev ToolsBrowser |
| Features | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking |
| Platforms | Android | Android |
| Website | ||
| Source code |