Several years ago, I used Blockada, which was frequently recommended. According to some discussion threads, it seems to have fallen from grace.
What ad blocker that doesn’t require root do you use? What’s your experience with it? Would you recommend it?
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I use Fennec (fork of Firefox stable) as my main browser and it has uBlock Origin, which has tons of filters. They even added specific mobile ones for annoyances like cookie banners. On top of that, I set my private DNS to
dns.adguard.com. Ads aren’t getting thru my defenses!Personally I use a VPN (Proton vpn but there are loads) that blocks ads.
At home I use a pihole, which is fantastic.
AdAway is what I use on my rooted devices. It does have a rootless mode as well and if it’s anywhere near as good as the root mode I would absolutely recommend it. I haven’t tested it though so give it a shot.
AdAway works very well unrooted. It sets itself as a VPN that you can toggle on/off within the notification or app. I’ve had no issues with it, personally. Recommended, especially if coming from Blokada since they moved to subscriptions.
Thanks! I’m leaning towards this option. Have you noticed any battery drain? Blockada seemed to affected my battery life sometimes.
I have it off most of the time and turn it on when I know I’m heading into an adpocalyptic space, so I’m not really sure. 😅
Been using Rethink DNS for awhile now. It has a lot of custom blocklists and can even block apps from having WiFi and Mobile Data access.
try setting up your private dns to: adblock.doh.mullvad.net
Adguard works by setting up a virtual VPN and blocking adds that go through it.
I’m kinda surprised that didn’t see anyone recommending RethinkDNS. It’s a DNS and Firewall app that works through VPN. You can choose through a bunch of servers that they offer, including the RDNS Plus that you can select the blocklists you want, or just chose other DNS of your choice and block the domains using local blocklists in the app. Using the firewall function, you can block or allow individual domains or apps. Been using it for like two years.
You can easily use private DNS settings on your android without installing anything!
dns.adguard.com is simple and works well nextdns allows more configuration, stats and blocklists
So what I never understood, why is this free and is there an risk attaches to using it, e.g. adguard or nextdns logging your traffic or something. I have always been suspicious, for no good reason to be honest, of using such a dns service.
Is it possible to use private dns only on mobile network ?
yes, I just found this out recently ! privacy guides have a section on this: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/dns/#android
Android 9 and above support DNS over TLS. The settings can be found in: Settings → Network & Internet → Private DNS.
I personally never found DNS adblockers to be very successful.
The developers of an app that uses ads can also just route the traffic through a server that also provides something crirical for the app to work. You’d have some CDN probably serving both. I mean, in the long run, if app developers work againat it, you can’t block apps from showing ads by blocking network traffic.
I doubt that the Android security model lets apps know what’s happening on overlays, though, as doing so would create issues for Android as an OS. So apps that cover up ads are hard for app developers to defeat.
If you’re using Chrome, that’s why. Chrome bypasses your DNS settings and uses Google’s DNS because they found using the system settings was affecting their ad revenue. Using Firefox fixes this, although in Firefox you can just use ublock origin anyway, which works even better.
Chrome doesn’t behave that way for me. It uses my DNS settings correctly and ads are blocked. I can’t remember it ever not behaving, though I usually use Firefox.
I use DNS66 downloaded from F-Droid. It registers itself as a VPN, but it’s actually a DNS filter, not a VPN. It works to filter ads on most apps, and you can individually disable it for specific apps if needed.
I also use the Firefox app, which supports a few add-ons (much less than the desktop version), including uBlock and some similar options
I’d recommend one or both. They’re working great for me on a non-rooted Pixel 4a 5G
Honestly, I should probably set up a system-wide adblocker, but I just use uBlock in Firefox and avoid apps that shove ads in my face.
NextDNS (free up to 300k queries/month, doesn’t require any additional apps) or AdGuard (paid but has cosmetic filtering, they have their own app available on their website). Both are fast and don’t require root.
Just to note, Adguard cosmetic filtering only works with browser apps without root. For most other apps it requires root to filter HTTPS traffic.
Does NextDNS use a VPN? Unfortunately TailScale and VPNs can’t be active at the same time
You can actually take it one step further and directly integrate NextDNS into your Tailnet: https://tailscale.com/kb/1218/nextdns/
Not if you use androids built-in private dns feature. Try these with private dns https://dnswarden.com/index.html https://www.rethinkdns.com/ https://controld.com/ https://nextdns.io dot.chi.ahadns.net adblock.doh.mullvad.net dot-de.blahdns.com dns.adguard.com
Adaway is the go to thing for me, it’s FOSS and Supports VPN as Well as Root Mode. Also it already has some Blocklists integrated and you can easily add more and the battery drain is near to negligable.
I use TrackerControl. It doesn’t block ads in browsers, however, so I use Firefox and ublock origin there.
I’ve been using AdGuard on my phone (OnePlus 6T) and tablet (Tab S7 FE) for quite some time now. Neither device is rooted. I got AdGuard lifetime license on sale from StackSocial a while back. The app isn’t on the Play Store (if you look for it, you will instead find an extension for the Samsung browser or something). They have you download the .apk from their site, and then you can set up the blocking how you prefer. It works by setting up a local VPN. I think there’s other ways to use it but I didn’t feel the need to tweak further. Because it acts like a VPN, all app traffic flows through it so ads are blocked pretty much system-wide. Browsers, social media apps etc. Honestly I’d highly recommend it.
I’m in the same position. Works well.
I use adguard as well. Zero complaints.
Have you noticed any battery drain from it? Blockada sometimes affected my battery life when in use, or even after I deactivated it.
Blokada likes to eat up battery because all filtering takes place on your device. The more lists you have the worse it gets. AdGuard uses their own servers to block stuff and only does some cosmetic filtering in their app. In my experience it almost didn’t affect the battery at all.
Honestly not that much. It seems pretty lightweight. It has it’s own measurement of battery usage (can’t say how accurate it is but still better than nothing perhaps?) and on the tablet it has consumed around 9mAh, which I guess isn’t too crazy.
I set up an account with NextDNS and set them as my DNS server. It blocks ads, trackers, malicious websites. You can set up custom blocks, rewrites, and it has logging.
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Plus it’s free under 300k queries a month. I’ve been using it for years and never hit my limit. I should pay for it though, it’s not expensive and I’ve gotten a lot of value out of it.
Same with me. After I’ve read you comment i bought the subscription. This service is so worth to me.
I am looking at installing some custom firmware in my router that will do DNS over https and setting NextDNS for my whole house. I’ll definitely need to pay for it then.
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I considered setting up a pi hole or something similar, but worry about the bus situation and my family. I figure NextDNS would be easier to maintain or remove than added hardware.
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If I get hit by a bus, who will maintain it? Comes from working in IT and not having one person be the sole person with the knowledge of something. Also called the lotto situation. What happens if they win the lotto and bounce?
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