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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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
I personally never found DNS adblockers to be very successful.
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.
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.
Easily the best option, works so well and you can still use your own VPN as and when required.
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.
Yeah I have a pihole at home, but considered paying and then setting it up on my whole network. Not sure.
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.
Bus situation?
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?
Very very good point.
I’ve basically told my SO to turn my server off and plug the ISP provided router in lol
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.
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.
If you’re coming from Blokada, check out AdAway. It works the same way unrooted, setting itself as a VPN that can be toggled on and off. So if you’re coming from Blokada, it’s like that, but without the recent-ish subscription stuff - so you’ll feel right at home.
Personally I use a VPN (Proton vpn but there are loads) that blocks ads.
At home I use a pihole, which is fantastic.
Private DNS. I use https://nextdns.io/, and then just change my phone’s private DNS address to match.
Works great, easy enough to toggle off if needed.
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.
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/
Blokada used to be recommend a lot in the past, what happen to them in the past 2 years?
They’ve moved to a cloud-based, subscription model for the new version (Blockada 6). You can still get Blockada 5, which is offline and free, for now, but it may be phased out at some point.
Yeah I’m not looking forward to that. 5 has been great for me for a few years though. Ads be gone!
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
try setting up your private dns to: adblock.doh.mullvad.net
I use paid Adguard on my s23 and my ipad and I love it
I hate adguard v4, what have they done?
Why do you hate it? I noticed it takes more steps to filter out an app but haven’t messed much with it tbh
Adguard is the best option for system-wide, rootless ad blocking on Android IMO.
It’s the best because it also performs cosmetic filtering to reclaim the empty space that most other blockers leave behind after removing an ad from a web page. This makes web pages look much cleaner and is something that I value in any adblocker, mobile or otherwise. The free version works across any browser or embedded webview instance within apps, and the paid version filters all ads within apps as well. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Completely negligible impact on battery life as well.
Thanks, that’s useful to know, especially regarding the paid vs free version. I may get the trial to see how it does, then consider getting a license.
I’ve used DNS66 from F-Droid. Worked like a charm.
I use Mullvad VPN and so far it’s been fantastic.
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.
