I’m talking full phone and blocking. Not just browser.
Edit: So many options! Thanks guys I’ll go through them all and see what one I think will work best for me. I appreciate it.
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uBlock Origin on Mull browser (if not Firefox), Mullvad DNS or NextDNS for “Private DNS” (its DNS-over-HTTPS iirc) if you are not rooted
Probably a good VPN with adblocking features. Iirc, protonvpn and mullvad do this pretty well. I’ve tried the dns methods like other people mention and on some public networks, it won’t work because they force a specific dns so you need to vpn for it to work.
And if they force a particular DNS they’re is a reason for that and I don’t use that Wi-Fi
Proton VPN , or just change DNS to DNS.adguard.com
Mullvad DNS or libredns
AdAway is amazing. I’ve used the rooted version for 10 years now and it just works
Pihole on the home network and my phone has constant VPN connection to the home network via Wireguard.
Out of curiosity, you have to open a port in the router for that to work, right? How does that work in the security aspect? Do you need to do some constant maintenance in your setup or something in order not to be vulnerable?
DNS
Use ublock origin
Adding Ahadns to this list: https://ahadns.com/
I’m a fan of nextdns
AdGuard can filter all (or select) traffic blocking ads in other apps.
You can also use their DNS server without having to install anything
That is true but then it applies to everything and you can’t pick and choose which app to filter and which not (I exclude banking app for example), what level of filtering you want for each app (my phone is not rooted so there are some apps which will reject https filtering), and additionally I can quickly turn off and on filtering in the app for example when there’s a need for troubleshooting why something is not loading etc. In short, with an app you have more control and access to stats:
Doesn’t that require root? Or am I getting it confused with another solution with “ad” in the title? :/
The one you are thinking is Adaway which makes changes to the system host file.
AdGuard creates a local VPN connection and lets all traffic run through that blocking based on filters. Your VPN slot is taken up here.
NextDNS just changes your phone DNS to its servers and blocks based on filters. Here, your VPN slot is essentially free for use with actual VPN apps.
Your VPN slot is taken up here.
Oof, yeah, that wouldn’t work for me anyway since I currently use a VPN. Lol.
Thanks for clearing it up though! :)
NextDNS just changes your phone DNS to its servers and blocks based on filters. Here, your VPN slot is essentially free for use with actual VPN apps.
That sounds promising! :D
You can use it like a VPN service. But note, that AdGuard for Android isn’t OSS
Ew.
Hagezi HOSTS file in NetGuard or Invizible Pro firewall. Systemwide ad/tracker/miner/malware blocking. No root needed.
I use Blokada - but not the latest version since the company switched from the free open-source standalone app paradigm to a cloud-based continual paid subscription model. It seems like Blokada version 4 (obtained either from the company’s webpage or F-droid I forget which) blocks a heck of a lot more stuff than version 5 for some reason.
On the other hand, it also noticeably heats up my phone if a not-well-behaved app (examples include Freemium games) continually resubmits queries over & over again every (or even multiple times a) second. You can block every request that it makes… but it can also keep making them so… at some point you may question whether the cost is worth it.
This arguably relates more to “tracking” than actual advertisements, since there can only be a finite number of the latter but the former can happen all day every day even when the app is not running, if it decides to be aggressive about checking in with its home base. These days, even if you do pay for something, your data is STILL the actual “product” that is the reason the company is in business at all to obtain.:-(
I use Blockada 5 and haven’t noticed any heating issues, it might be worth a go! I did have to enable most of the lists to get good coverage (and then a couple custom selected on/off over time) but I mostly don’t think about it after a little setup. The only thing I do have to worry about is swapping which VPN is on when I want a real VPN- but fortunately the VPN I like (Mullvad) has adblock built in too.
Yeah I still use Blokada 5 on my daily driver - it generally works “well enough” for most things, so I never bothered to switch to 4 on it. But I did notice that if you try to play a game on it, it’s like the ad blocker isn’t even there, whereas version 4 worked a lot better straight away. I may just not have played around enough with the settings of 5 though:-).
I use 5 and I noticed it was hit or miss so I just said fuck it and enabled all of the available lists lol haven’t seen an ad since
