Asblock Plus and your Android player
I installed Adblock Plus on my Imito MX1 and gave it Superuser access on root.
Why? I don't know. I got sick of the little ads on MX Player when it was paused. I think I saw Adblock in a headline when it was pulled from the Playstore. So off I went to find an APK and get it for myself.
I guess when someone says I can't have something it makes me want it.
Well, at first I thought it was working nicely in the background. No more little ads in MX Player.
Then I started having issues on Netflix. My whole wireless network was going wonky.
I thought my router was on its last leg. I did a bunch of troubleshooting and watched my traffic on my 2.4 band and my 5 band on my dualband router.
What I noticed was that I was maxing out on the 2.4 band when I used Netflix. The Imito doesn't use the 5 band. The weird thing was it stayed maxed out when I exited Netflix.
If I flipped the WiFi switch on my MX1 off and then back on, the traffic dropped right off and looked normal. Until I streamed another video. My playback on Netflix and Youtube was awful. Netflix even buffered and kicked me off a couple times.
I was looking at buying either a new router or a new TV Android device.
Then the thought occurred to me that when I ran a memory cleaner app that stopped a bunch of apps in aggressive mode that some other apps worked well while some wouldn't work until a reboot. So I looked at the apps that that memory cleaner stopped in aggressive mode and Adblock was one of them.
I rebooted my MX1, started a stream on Netflix, watched my traffic max out and then stopped the video. I closed Netflix and my traffic was still maxed out. Then, I opened the Adblock Plus app and flipped the switch to block ads off. -BAM- my traffic dropped down like I'd expect it to normally.
I found this discussion confirming the bug on Adblock's forum; https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11790
Until they iron out the bug they're discussing on that link I'd recommend not using it always on. Or at all to be honest. My MX1 needs all the free resources it can get to run best and blocking a few stupid little ads isn't worth the trouble I had. Luckily I realized what it was before I did anything drastic.
I'm even more thankful I didn't install Adblock Plus on my cellphone or tablet. My tablet is only WiFi, but my phone might have caused some bigger headaches. In one week Adblock plus showed 48 gigs of data usage on my MX1. It seems to be they a combination of how it filters traffic and how Android tracks data usage. Every bit of traffic goes through Adbock when you have it running and it has a bug where it fails to stop during and after streaming a video.
It was using three times as much data with Netflix than Netflix uses on its own. It caused my Android to keep sucking this bloated amount of data even after stopping the video stream. I was unplugging my MX1 when I wasn't using it because I thought it was on the fritz.
I couldn't get my laptop and other devises to work when this bug was going on.
Right now I just Adblock Plus switched off, but I don't plan on turning it back on until I see the bug gone.
One person running it on their cellphone went over their monthly data limit in two hours after running the app on cell network. Just by starting a video stream. The bug caused his device to suck data non-stop after watching one little video.
Anyone else running the Adblock Plus and have trouble with streaming?
There's my PSA for the day. I hope it helps.
Why? I don't know. I got sick of the little ads on MX Player when it was paused. I think I saw Adblock in a headline when it was pulled from the Playstore. So off I went to find an APK and get it for myself.
I guess when someone says I can't have something it makes me want it.
Well, at first I thought it was working nicely in the background. No more little ads in MX Player.
Then I started having issues on Netflix. My whole wireless network was going wonky.
I thought my router was on its last leg. I did a bunch of troubleshooting and watched my traffic on my 2.4 band and my 5 band on my dualband router.
What I noticed was that I was maxing out on the 2.4 band when I used Netflix. The Imito doesn't use the 5 band. The weird thing was it stayed maxed out when I exited Netflix.
If I flipped the WiFi switch on my MX1 off and then back on, the traffic dropped right off and looked normal. Until I streamed another video. My playback on Netflix and Youtube was awful. Netflix even buffered and kicked me off a couple times.
I was looking at buying either a new router or a new TV Android device.
Then the thought occurred to me that when I ran a memory cleaner app that stopped a bunch of apps in aggressive mode that some other apps worked well while some wouldn't work until a reboot. So I looked at the apps that that memory cleaner stopped in aggressive mode and Adblock was one of them.
I rebooted my MX1, started a stream on Netflix, watched my traffic max out and then stopped the video. I closed Netflix and my traffic was still maxed out. Then, I opened the Adblock Plus app and flipped the switch to block ads off. -BAM- my traffic dropped down like I'd expect it to normally.
I found this discussion confirming the bug on Adblock's forum; https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11790
Until they iron out the bug they're discussing on that link I'd recommend not using it always on. Or at all to be honest. My MX1 needs all the free resources it can get to run best and blocking a few stupid little ads isn't worth the trouble I had. Luckily I realized what it was before I did anything drastic.
I'm even more thankful I didn't install Adblock Plus on my cellphone or tablet. My tablet is only WiFi, but my phone might have caused some bigger headaches. In one week Adblock plus showed 48 gigs of data usage on my MX1. It seems to be they a combination of how it filters traffic and how Android tracks data usage. Every bit of traffic goes through Adbock when you have it running and it has a bug where it fails to stop during and after streaming a video.
It was using three times as much data with Netflix than Netflix uses on its own. It caused my Android to keep sucking this bloated amount of data even after stopping the video stream. I was unplugging my MX1 when I wasn't using it because I thought it was on the fritz.
I couldn't get my laptop and other devises to work when this bug was going on.
Right now I just Adblock Plus switched off, but I don't plan on turning it back on until I see the bug gone.
One person running it on their cellphone went over their monthly data limit in two hours after running the app on cell network. Just by starting a video stream. The bug caused his device to suck data non-stop after watching one little video.
Anyone else running the Adblock Plus and have trouble with streaming?
There's my PSA for the day. I hope it helps.
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