I would like to pirate on my phone sometimes and the ads on websites are problem. I’m not newbie, I know I can install firefox and get the uBlock on it but firefox android is a little bit slow so I prefer to use Opera browser; opera has an ad blocker but it’s a joke compared to uBlock. I’m in a restricted country and my phone is not rooted, so if I use ad block apps like AdAway or Adgaurd they need to create a VPN connection in order to function unless the phone is rooted, and that VPN connection doesn’t let me to enable another VPN in order to visit filtered websites or apps.
I’m not stuck, but felt if I ask here there may be another smart solution for ad blocking on android that can solve these small problems; and the solution would help other people so be kind and provide what you have.
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You can try out nextDNS. It has a list of blockers and you can track and block what request are being made by your phone.
Additionally, DNS-crypt proxy can be a good alternative too.
I’ve been using NextDNS for a while now. It’s great compared to VPN implementations like Blokada because it frees up your phone to use an actual VPN.
I’ve found PDNSQS for when I need to temporarily disable ad blocking, a really nice addition.
Blokada 6 uses the DNS implementation. It’s a subscription service. I paid for a year then realized I could use NextDNS and use it on multiple devices rather than be limited to just my phone for a couple dollars less.
I’m actually using NextDNS’ vpn implementation as it doesn’t affect the wifi at work, for whatever reason I’d always have to disable private dns in order to use the corporate wifi.
If you don’t want firefox, Cromite is pretty good. Also if you need your vpn for other things, then the next best thing is a custom dns, I use nextdns which is customisable and blocks a fair amount of stuff.
Setting up a PiHole is a method that should work. Costs a bit if you don’t already have something to host it on.
Use firefox and simply deal with the slightly slower app?
Firefox on Android allows a few extensions. A few of those are privacy badger, ublock origin, and decentraleyes. Should meet your need at a base level.
EDIT: Spelling
Have you heard about pihole for DNS blocking ? You m might have success when at home on wifi as this would greatly cut down on ads and trackers.
Otherwise, if you think Firefox is too slow to pirate (not sure I understand that, but ok) you can try another browser … maybe try Brave? Ya, maybe some negative publicity lately, but I’m not sure it bothers me, or perhaps I don’t understand what exactly they might be selling of my info…
I’m sure I mentioned that opera is my main browser because it’s faster. And I don’t care much about my data being sold to chinese government because 1. I’m in a restricted country and they can’t take any usage of my info. 2. I hide myself in other ways.
Pihole for network wide ad blocking (no ads on all apps on all devices within the LAN) then self-host a vpn to keep your phone within that lan.
Tis what I do at least.
Blocks pretty much everything except Youtube, and Twitchs video ads as they serve their own ads from their own domain’s as well as things like sponsored posts on reddit/twitter/facebook.
Don’t watch much Twitch, Youtube (re)Vanced is a thing, and Twitter/FB/Reddit can all die in a fire. So none of those are issues for me either.
Hosting a vpn also gives me secure remote access to my various self-hosted services like Radarr/Sonarr/SABnzbd/qbit/etc, without directly exposing them to the open internet.
This is exactly how I’ve been doing it. Pihole + Wireguard. Set your pihole device as your DNS on everything ya want. It’s shocking how much crap tries phoning home. Especially smart TV’s and streaming sticks(Roku ex).
I considered doing exactly that, but I was afraid of the battery usage, with wireguard always on… Do you have any feedback on that part ?
Set your pihole device as your DNS on everything ya want.
I went one further and defined my pihole as the DNS IP that the dhcp server hands out; then set iptables rules on the router to block all external dns access except for the pihole.
If you’re on my LAN, you must use the LAN DNS server, or you will not get DNS resolved at all. Enforcing ad and telemetry blocking network wide.
How often do you run into issues with certain sites (stuff like banking or Netflix) not liking the blockage? I’m considering doing this bit the WAF needs to be high and not cause her grief or block her from accessing specific stuff.
I’ve had 0 issues with things I want to access being blocked, but if you do want to access a blocked site you can add it to the whitelist via piholes web interface in about 30 seconds (manually or just finding it in the history and clicking ‘whitelist’) or you can disable blocking entirely for 5sec/30sec/5min/indefinitely with 2 clicks (or a custom time).
Upon re-read I realized you’d like to use a comercial vpn as well (for bypassing restrictions in your country).
You can setup your self-hosted vpn to work in tandem: Your phone stays connected to your own vpn keeping it part of your home LAN, then you setup the device hosting that VPN to also connect to a comercial VPN, routing all LAN traffic headed to WAN to instead go over that comercial vpn escaping the restrictions in your country.
Tailscale ftw!
I use tailscale as a mullvad client. Really happy with both.
This, but I personally use Adguard Home + Unbound instead of Pi-Hole + Unbound. Adguard Hone also open source, but it runs as a single service instead of 2. You can easily update it from the web interface when there’s a new release, which makes things easier.
Easiest solution I found was manually setting a Private DNS on Android. Adguard public DNS address filters pretty much all of them.
Agreed, although I prefer pihole on a separate device. DNS blocking is best blocking.
Adware can detect that crap isn’t loaded, but it is indistinguishable from the crap server being down. Normal page blocking is a lot more detectable, so assume pages then instruct you to disable your blocker.
Also, DNS blocking saves you bandwidth.
I’ve found it’s worked really well. One annoying part is if you use Google search, the top 4/5 results which usually are ads (but eventually redirect to the correct page you want) become inaccessible, as Adguard interrupts it
In your case I’d sacrifice a bit of speed and went with Firefox. Another option is AdGuard + AdGuard VPN, the apps can work together.
https://controld.com/free-dns has free DNS resolvers that do the same thing as a pihole. you just go to your phones “Private DNS” setting and at it there. this will work for non-browser apps as well!
Thanks for this! I use Windscribe VPN and really like it. Didn’t realize there is a free tier for Control D.
Yeah the engine for Control D is the same as for windscribe just with more bells and whistles, and loads of configuration tools on the paid tier. It’s great for smartphones which circumvent ad blocking by putting stuff in apps rather than browsers.
I used to be a big fan of Opera back when it was good but I wouldn’t recommend using anything made by them since they got bought out by a shady Chinese company that makes their money off of predatory payday loan apps with exploitative interest rates in a few developing nations. Firefox (and Mull and the like) are the best Android web browsers but if you really want a Chromium-based one then I’d recommend looking into using one that’s open source and not owned by an unethical corporation.
If I were you I’d just root my phone and use it along with AdAway.
If that isn’t an option for you you already got some neat answers like using a public DNS or your own self hosted.
NextDNS
Seconded. NextDNS is incredible and you don’t even have to subscribe to get the benefit unless you’re a super heavy user.
is this any better than adguard dns or just similar?
way better, as it lets you choose the block lists, add custom domains or whitelist the ones that are being blocked, check the statistics on which domain is being blocked the most, and some more nifty stuff. and it’s also not made by a Russian company.
actually I’m just using the public dns so I don’t think I can do that
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Pihole + firefox + ublock for adds here. Im not using this, but its also possible to set your home server connect to VPN provider and then route all traffic through that. Then you can use your selfhosted VPN to connect with phone and use both at the same time. Or just enable add blocking on your VPN provider, I guess most of them have one
Blokada.
