privacy: always-on network backstop that cancels Google phone-home requests (variations, safe-browsing, metrics, component-update, optimization-hints, gcm, connectivity probe, telemetry suffixes) even when tracker blocking is off — network-level guarantee behind runtime de-googling; excludes user-facing google services so sites don't break

Author: nyxthelobster

shell/src/blocklist.cc

@@ -217,6 +217,79 @@ bool OpenNyxBlocklist::ShouldBlock(const std::string& host_in,
   return false;
 }
 
+bool OpenNyxBlocklist::ShouldBlockGooglePhoneHome(const std::string& host_in) {
+  if (host_in.empty()) {
+    return false;
+  }
+  const std::string host = ToLower(host_in);
+
+  // Exact phone-home hostnames Chromium reaches out to for telemetry,
+  // variations seeds, safe-browsing, component updates, optimization hints,
+  // domain reliability, gcm/push, and the connectivity probe. These are NOT
+  // user-facing services, so blocking them never breaks browsing. This list is
+  // the network backstop behind the command-line switches.
+  static const std::unordered_set<std::string> kGooglePhoneHome = {
+      // Variations / field trials
+      "clients4.google.com",
+      "clientservices.googleapis.com",
+      // Component / extension updates
+      "update.googleapis.com",
+      "clients2.google.com",
+      "clients2.googleusercontent.com",
+      // Metrics / UMA / crash
+      "clients1.google.com",
+      "clients3.google.com",
+      "clients5.google.com",
+      "clients6.google.com",
+      "stats.g.doubleclick.net",
+      // Safe Browsing
+      "safebrowsing.googleapis.com",
+      "safebrowsing.google.com",
+      "sb-ssl.google.com",
+      // Optimization hints / prefetch proxy
+      "optimizationguide-pa.googleapis.com",
+      // Domain reliability
+      "domain-reliability.googleapis.com",
+      // GCM / push (Chrome's background messaging)
+      "mtalk.google.com",
+      "gcm.googleapis.com",
+      // Connectivity / captive-portal probe
+      "connectivitycheck.gstatic.com",
+      // Translate backend (the API host, not the user-facing translate.google
+      // .com site)
+      "translate.googleapis.com",
+  };
+  if (kGooglePhoneHome.find(host) != kGooglePhoneHome.end()) {
+    return true;
+  }
+
+  // Suffix families that are pure telemetry/ads infrastructure.
+  static const char* kGoogleTelemetrySuffixes[] = {
+      "gvt2.com",   // update / experiment pings
+      "doubleclick.net",
+      "google-analytics.com",
+      "googletagmanager.com",
+      "googletagservices.com",
+      "googlesyndication.com",
+      "app-measurement.com",
+      "crashlytics.com",
+  };
+  std::string h = host;
+  while (!h.empty()) {
+    for (const char* suf : kGoogleTelemetrySuffixes) {
+      if (h == suf) {
+        return true;
+      }
+    }
+    const size_t dot = h.find('.');
+    if (dot == std::string::npos) {
+      break;
+    }
+    h = h.substr(dot + 1);
+  }
+  return false;
+}
+
 void OpenNyxBlocklist::RecordBlock(const std::string& first_party_host) {
   total_blocked_.fetch_add(1);
   if (first_party_host.empty()) {

shell/src/blocklist.h

@@ -37,6 +37,14 @@ class OpenNyxBlocklist {
   bool ShouldBlock(const std::string& host,
                    const std::string& first_party_host);
 
+  // Always-on Google phone-home guard, independent of the tracker toggle and
+  // WITHOUT any first-party exception. This is the network-level backstop for
+  // runtime de-googling: even if a command-line switch fails to suppress a
+  // Google telemetry/variations/safe-browsing call, the request is cancelled
+  // here. Returns true for hosts that are pure Google phone-home endpoints
+  // (never user-facing services like google.com search or googlevideo).
+  bool ShouldBlockGooglePhoneHome(const std::string& host);
+
   // Total number of domains in the bundled list.
   size_t size() const { return domains_.size(); }
 

shell/src/opennyx_client.cc

@@ -176,16 +176,22 @@ cef_return_value_t OpenNyxClient::OnBeforeResourceLoad(
     CefRefPtr<CefRequest> request,
     CefRefPtr<CefCallback> callback) {
   OpenNyxBlocklist* bl = OpenNyxBlocklist::Get();
-  if (!bl->enabled()) {
-    return RV_CONTINUE;
-  }
   const std::string url = request->GetURL().ToString();
   // Never block our own scheme.
   if (url.compare(0, 10, "opennyx://") == 0) {
     return RV_CONTINUE;
   }
-  // Extract host of the request and of the first-party document.
   const std::string req_host = HostOf(url);
+  // Always-on Google phone-home backstop: runs even when the tracker toggle is
+  // OFF. This is the network-level guarantee behind runtime de-googling.
+  if (!req_host.empty() && bl->ShouldBlockGooglePhoneHome(req_host)) {
+    bl->RecordBlock(HostOf(frame ? frame->GetURL().ToString() : std::string()));
+    return RV_CANCEL;
+  }
+  if (!bl->enabled()) {
+    return RV_CONTINUE;
+  }
+  // Extract host of the first-party document.
   std::string fp_host;
   if (frame) {
     fp_host = HostOf(frame->GetURL().ToString());