Battery saver Dns vs Default modes

[Novaliss]

The first month or so of my usage with GrapheneOS+RethinkDns, I chose 'Dns only (battery saver)' mode, in pursuit of, yes, battery savings. I had to 'manually' test, and experience the 'default' full Dns+Firewall mode to learn that the latter is better for battery economy, contrary to its label in the selector.

Do we know whether Dns only mode is saving battery, is the 'Battery saver' maybee a remnant label from early versions?

❤️
Novaliss

[ignoramous]

In DNS only mode, Android only routes DNS packets to Rethink. This is much lighter in terms of power use (think: 1%).

Whereas in Firewall or DNS + Firewall mode, Android routes all packets to Rethink. And just because now Rethink has to process all packets, it is that relatively heavier on power use (think 3% to 10%).

In those modes, Rethink's consumption depends on other apps. If they wake up the device from deep sleep / doze state / idle mode frequently to establish Internet connections, then Rethink also has to wake up to process those connections, including potentially sending them out, which involves turning up the expensive (in terms of power use) radios like wifi / mobile.

Also, another thing is, Android's per-app battery accounting, from what I know, is more of a heuristic and not meant to be accurate. So, that's there, too.

(moving this to discussions, as it isn't really an issue but a question)