Debloating & Optimizing Nox

debloatNox.md

Debloating Nox

Nox, despite being the most feature-filled Android emulator, has a lot of negativity surrounding it due to their antics when it comes to making income off of their program. It is known for running repeated advertisments in the background, calling home and passing along system information (outside of your Android instance) as well as a vast amount of potentially sensitive data in an encrypted payload back to their multitude of servers. With the following preventitive measures, we can stop a majority of this happening as well as greatly improve the overall performance.

1. Download and Install a fresh copy of Nox. The latest version is fine (for now). If you already have it installed, that is fine too. No need to reinstall.

2. Enable Root Mode on Nox by clicking the gear icon and then checking the Root Startup box.

3. Install a new Launcher from the Play Store. ANYTHING but Nox's default. I suggest Nova Launcher.

4. Once your launcher of choice is installed, click the Home icon and choose Nova Launcher and to Always Use This Launcher.

5. Go to your App Drawer and open File Manager and navigate to system -> app. In this folder, find Launcher_X.X.X_*.apk and com.facebook.lite.apk – delete them. If it says they are not found after tapping delete, just tap delete again.

6. Close Nox and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc and right click the hosts file and open it in Notepad (Run as Administrator if needed) or a plain text editor of your choice (e.g. Notepad++, VS Code, etc.) – once open, append the following list to the bottom of the file:

127.0.0.1 8.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 alog.umeng.com
127.0.0.1 android.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 androiden.duapp.com
127.0.0.1 api-new.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 api.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 api.mobula.sdk.duapps.com
127.0.0.1 app.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 app.static.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 app.test.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 attitude.applinzi.com
127.0.0.1 au.umeng.com
127.0.0.1 bbs.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 bi.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 bignox.com
127.0.0.1 cn.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 common.duapps.com
127.0.0.1 de.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 dev.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 download.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 en.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 es.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 feed.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 fr.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 game.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 gift.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 gray.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 group.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 hm.e.shifen.com
127.0.0.1 hmma.baidu.com
127.0.0.1 id.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 image.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 info.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 ios.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 kr.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 launcher-us.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 launcher.us.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 log.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 mail.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 mis.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 mobile.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 ms.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 my.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 news.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 noxagile.bceapp.com
127.0.0.1 noxagile.duapp.com
127.0.0.1 nrc.tapas.net
127.0.0.1 open.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 passport-us.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 passport.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 pasta.esfile.duapps.com
127.0.0.1 pay.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 ph.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 phone.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 plat-api.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 player.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 pop3.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 pt.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 pubstatus.sinaapp.com
127.0.0.1 res02.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res05.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res06.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res09.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res11.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res12.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 res.noxmobi.com
127.0.0.1 ru.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 sdk.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 sdk.open.inc2.igexin.com
127.0.0.1 shouyou.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 sj.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 sns.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 st.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 survey.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 t.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 tdcv3.talkingdata.net
127.0.0.1 tl.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 tracking.apptrackerlink.com
127.0.0.1 tracking.trnox.com
127.0.0.1 tui.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 tv.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 tw.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 unauthorized.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 union.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 user.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 vip.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 wap.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 www.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 www.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 www.yeshen.com.w.kunlungr.com

Once appended, save and close Notepad.

7. Navigate to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Nox and open Conf.ini in the same editor used for hosts above. Once open, change the following options to the values defined below:

pop_ads_refresh_time=9223372036854775807
service_qq=0
service_qq_link=<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"#\" style=\"display: none;\"></a>
collect_behavior_enable=false
collect_behavior_interveral=9223372036854775807
root=false

Afterwards, save and close the file. Right Click it, go to Properties, and check Read Only so Nox will not revert these changes.

Once this is all done, you are free to re-open Nox and continue playing as usual.

Optimization

Ragnarok Mobile as well as a select few of other games have an in-game 2K resolution mode achievable by the iPad Pro and high-end 4K Android tablets. It can be enabled while using Nox by setting a proper resolution and DPI.

If you have already performed the steps above, you will need close Nox and temporarily uncheck Read Only on your conf.ini. Afterwards, open Nox and click the Cog on the top right and go to Advanced settings.

Performance Settings
These are computer-specific, so go to Start Menu -> Right Click My PC -> Properties and see how many cores your CPU has and how much memory you have.

Cores
Same amount as your processor has (e.g. i7-8700k has 6)

Memory
If your system has 16GB or more of memory, 8096MB is more than sufficient.
If your system has 8GB of memory, 4096MB is sufficient.
If your system has 4GB or less of memory, I'm sorry– but you shouldn't attempt 2K.

Startup settings
Width: 2560
Height: 1440
DPI: 320

Miscellaneous
Graphics rendering mode: Speed (DirectX)
Frame settings: 60
Mouse acceleration: Checked (Turn off mouse acceleration in Windows)

I don't have these lines to edit

C:\Users******\AppData\Local\Nox\conf.ini

service_qq=0
service_qq_link=<a target="_blank" href="#" style="display: none;">

Should I add them somewhere?

Hi guys. Recently I have been trying to sniff Nox`s internal exe-files and realized that when I launch specific applications (google-made?)
nox_adb.exe recieves such messages:

[#] [11:48:23.17] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  connect 127.0.0.1:62001" 
[#] [11:48:23.74] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  connect 127.0.0.1:62001" 
[#] [11:48:23.93] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  -s 127.0.0.1:62001 shell netstat -au" 
[#] [11:48:24.47] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  connect 127.0.0.1:62001" 
[#] [11:48:30.71] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  connect 127.0.0.1:62001" 
[#] [11:48:33.09] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  connect 127.0.0.1:62001" 
[#] [11:48:33.29] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\_nox_adb.exe C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\nox_adb.exe  -s 127.0.0.1:62001 shell content query --uri content://com.android.launcher3.PlayerProvider --projection package:base --where package='com.google.android.apps.nbu.files'" 

See the last line. I am not much familiar with adb API. Could someone plz tell wtf this command means? The only thing I am able to realize that there is some things are happening with default Nox launcher launcher3. Btw it is removed at that moment on my Nox copy so idk what is result of that.

This is not the only one thing I have found intriguing while sniffing it. Sometimes when you are launching Nox there is such call to 7za.exe

[-] [22:05:43.65] [C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\7za.exe] "C:\Apps\nox7029\bin\7za.exe  a -p347829 C:\Users\agvrn\d4ac4633ebd6440fa397b84f1bc94a3c.7z C:\Users\agvrn\rule.xml C:\Users\agvrn\state.xml" 

So here we can actually see that Nox is decompressing some passworded archive located ant %username% folder and extracts some rule.xml and state.xml files.
Ok. I have caught that archive and decompressed it myself (seems like password is constant just like zip-file name?). There is a content of extracted files

rule.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rule/>

Seems like none interesting here.

state.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<state begin_pulish_time_point="" pulish_package=""/>

A little bit more intriguing things here. Wtf is "pulish_package" means? Anyway it is emty here now and I did not even get default launcher installed after this events (I have my conf.ini unlocked for writing so Nox has less limits to install it but it did not.
Anyway I will still observing this situation.
Btw I have turned off calling the original command (so no decompression of strange xml files, only sniffing recieved commands) and it feel like Nox has no problem with it and it still works like a charm.
My objective is to improve Nox debloating process or/and result and so on.
Plz write your ideas if you have ones. I`d be very appreciated.

When the Nox instance is created it's sized very small ~1.5 GB. After sometime it grows a lot, I have some instances that are 7 GB now. The thing is, I've not installed anything new to it. No games, nothing. What makes the instances grows so much? Is it possible to shrink the .VMDK file size back to the defaults?

Run this in powershell to replace the Conf.ini files of existing instances, for example: "clone_Nox_1_conf.ini", "clone_Nox_2_conf.ini", etc...

Get-ChildItem $env:LOCALAPPDATA'\Nox\clone*.ini' | ForEach { (Get-Content $_) | ForEach { $_ -Replace 'pop_ads_refresh_time.*','pop_ads_refresh_time=9223372036854775807' -Replace 'collect_behavior_enable=true','collect_behavior_enable=false' -Replace 'collect_behavior_interval.*','collect_behavior_interval=9223372036854775807' -Replace 'root=true','root=false'} | Set-Content $_ }

This is a great idea - I'd love to get the performance of the emulator closer to my actual phone speed with some applications in particular. Right now, some games I have installed run 'fine' but need to be faster. I read through everything here and, while it seems like good practice, I haven't seen anything that is a silver bullet.

I also tried 'configuring' nox to use my nvidia card. This seemed to apply but had zero effect on performance.

any news about how remove the annoy ad popup?

redacted

Account created two hours ago + a positive alert in virustotal for Phishing.

I know that the message itself was more than enough evidence, but i just wanted to be sure lol

EDIT: SOLVED!!!

Does anyone have advice how to do step 5, because I can't delete the launcher on the new Android 12 beta instance for the life of me! No matter how often I set Nova launcher, it keeps asking me again, even if I pick "always". It stilol asks me again the moment I go to the home screen.

I cannot force stop the nox launcher, I tried Fx exlorer with root permissions but that blasted launcher file doesn't allow me to force stop it through that or change permissions

Used Fx Eplorer, set root for it, went to the "system > app" folder as described and pressed the 3 dots in the upper right corner, where I chose "Mount Read-Write". Then I could finally yeet the launcher out!

hello I have problem when I delete launcher from nox emulator I get error which when I click shows again and again and I can't do anything about it how can I fix this?

While looking into this topic, I found this client if anyone's interested
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/tool-guide-barenox-modded-nox-android-emulator.4468425/

Do you have another suggested launcher? I can't install Nova on Nox, as the Play Store will say "This phone isn't compatible with this app."
Also, " File Manager" has been replaced by "Amaze," which is proving to be harder to figure out.

Do you have another suggested launcher? I can't install Nova on Nox, as the Play Store will say "This phone isn't compatible with this app."

Ouch. Does using an older APK directly work? I'd imagine it would. I wrote this guide years ago and haven't used Nox much since I stopped playing Ragnarok Mobile.

I wish I could help everyone more, but while some of these tweaks are still viable, Nox has changed a lot in that time with many dark patterns in an attempt to prevent people from avoiding their monetization efforts. Their launcher is by far the worst offender.

Do you have another suggested launcher? I can't install Nova on Nox, as the Play Store will say "This phone isn't compatible with this app."

Ouch. Does using an older APK directly work? I'd imagine it would. I wrote this guide years ago and haven't used Nox much since I stopped playing Ragnarok Mobile.

I wish I could help everyone more, but while some of these tweaks are still viable, Nox has changed a lot in that time with many dark patterns in an attempt to prevent people from avoiding their monetization efforts. Their launcher is by far the worst offender.

I went with another launcher. Though then there was the Amaze issue and I think I've decided to go with a different emulator for what I'm trying to do. Thank you for your efforts, though.

how's Nox today? am using rn and nothing seems to be into my eyes rn

is debloated nox better than ldplayer 9?

I REALLY need an answer right now, Do I still need to do this? I've been using the launcher for a few days, having been told it was completely safe and all that. Did someone check it in 2024?

I REALLY need an answer right now, Do I still need to do this? I've been using the launcher for a few days, having been told it was completely safe and all that. Did someone check it in 2024?

Well kind of yes though I recommend doing this one to remove the ads.

https://youtu.be/TiSyemDLjyA?si=9EatTomRHWpXBMIn

And then you can really just keep this pageopen and also go to YouTube to search for "debloat nox player" and you'll get easy step by step guidance and can chose what part of debating you want to do.

I'm no expert. I would say it's safe. It's just way slimmer and less annoying when you debloat it.

I personally also installed hyperion launcher and then removed the nox launcher cause it's creeping with ads and stuff and they're only visually stressful for my brain AND I'm resistant to ads anyway. I just play what I want n get those recommendations from friends or look through steam games looool.

Basically it's up to you