System-level ad-blocking in Android (kevinboone.me)
19 points by birdculture an hour ago
somebudyelse 20 minutes ago
Highly recommend https://nextdns.io, great for all kinds of blocking stuff. Plus Firefox or Edge for uBlock support.
figmert 41 minutes ago
I can't recommend AdGuard enough. It works across devices, and just does all the DNS level blocking everywhere. I've been able to install it on my parents' devices, my siblings' devices, and more places. They have apps for just about any device. On top of that, you can install user scripts and use them on your mobile phones even if your browser doesn't support them (does require a CA cert being trusted).
My biggest issue is I can't use it while I'm connected to Tailscale, but my plan is to install AdGuard Home on my homelab and have that take over instead. It does remove many of the functions, but it's better than the alternative
janwillemb 24 minutes ago
I point "private DNS" to my VPS with pihole and stunnel, works quite well. Adguard as private DNS is also effective.
pmontra 17 minutes ago
I am using Blockada 5 from https://blokada.org
Onavo 41 minutes ago
Sigh, that's a lot of words to describe DNS based adblocking.
In Android you can either set your DNS server in the system settings or via the VPN API.
Sample code here https://github.com/t895/DNSNet/blob/a-couple-updates/service...
They both do the same thing. There are local device-only resolver apps like
https://github.com/m66b/netguard
Another famous one is DNS66 but it's sadly unmaintained. Avoid apps with the word "ad" in their name, they are usually semi commercial and can't be trusted.
Do note all of these methods can be overridden on the app level e.g. a lot of browsers come bundled with first party VPNs or use their own built-in resolvers.
If you want something more reliable, Firefox on Android with the UBlock Origin and Sponsorblock extensions is still the gold standard. Though do note the Android Firefox is extremely slow compared to the Chromium based browsers.
For app level ads, use an app patcher like https://github.com/morpheapp which can remove all in-app advertisements and inject sponsor blocking code.
Larrikin 19 minutes ago
In what meaningful way is there any difference in speed between Chrome and Firefox on Android?
I also prefer replacing uBlock Origin with Ad Nauseum which is built on top of ubo.
alekescu 40 minutes ago
There is a special irony to an article about ad blocking containing an apparent undisclosed ad for Nord.
altairprime 22 minutes ago
> an apparent undisclosed ad for Nord
What evidence supports the link referenced being an advertisement? I'm not seeing any referral, tracking, or any URI parameter data at all that would support the claim, and this seems to be their only instance of referring to it — where, in this 'state of the union' helpdesk-style article, one or more such 'VPN provider' links seems particularly relevant to visitors. (I do not use whatever this company's products are and have no opinion either way on them aside from mistrusting the claim presented here.)
Cider9986 30 minutes ago
One time I saw someone trying to hide an Amazon affiliate link in a post by putting the link text as amazon.com/dp/12345 but the link was amazon.com/dp/12345/ref=tracking. There's no affiliate link for Nord here but it's weird to use it as an example over better options: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/