11 ms·

Block Ads in Apps on Android

182 points by whalabi 8y ago

tobib 8y ago
> This is a free, open source app. Open source is important here because all your network requests will go through this app, and we need to make sure we can trust it. Because the app is open source, if it was doing anything shady, it would be found out. That's the statement that always bothers me because it's only true if you build the app yourself. This is giving people a simplistic view and a false sense of security.
- Forbo 8y ago
  If it's available on F-Droid, it can support reproducible builds, so that's at least one defense against it. https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/ https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/
  - pieter_mj 8y ago
    Yes it's available on F-Droid (see comment# https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19208623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19208623), but currently I have a slight preference for Blokada.
    - e40 8y ago
      I use Blokada, and I have less problems using it than I did Dns66. Lots of things stopped working with the latter, but I have yet to find anything that doesn't work with Blokada. However, Blokada has lately been crashing or stopping or being killed. I'm on Android 9. I have to start it manually when the notification disappears.
gattilorenz 8y ago
Another alternative, on a rooted phone, is AdAway, which can be obtained on F-Droid ( https://f-droid.org/en/ https://f-droid.org/en/ ). I'm more than satisfied with it.
- marceloneil 8y ago
  AdAway is quite nice as it updates your hosts file directly rather than using the phones VPN feature, although the downside is you do need root.
- trishmapow2 8y ago
  Which filter lists do you use? I find a few ads still get through on the default settings.
  - gattilorenz 8y ago
    https://pastebin.com/raw/L0011N6C https://pastebin.com/raw/L0011N6C Although to be honest I also use the Brave browser,so that might explain why I have so few ads when browsing. Yeah, I really hate them...
- PkBuzios 8y ago
  AdAway is, until today, the best option. All the other root-free alternatives requires the app to run on the background which may consume resources, battery or even crash and stop functioning.
sebsauvage 8y ago
I also did this: https://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=dns-blocklist-en https://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=dns-blocklist-en
hivacruz 8y ago
How does it compare with Blockada? https://blokada.org https://blokada.org
- gamesbrainiac 8y ago
  I've used both and Blockada is better mainly because it has a couple of killer features. One example is that it will keep the app alive, so that the power saving features of your phone does not kick in and turn it off.
  - mlrtime 8y ago
    How does this affect battery life though?
    - nomadtwin 8y ago
      I have between 1-2% battery usage.
      - chrisper 8y ago
        You forgot to say what timeframe.
        Dolores12 8y ago
        No matter what time frame 1-2% is 1-2%.
        chrisper 8y ago
        The time very much matters. 1-2% per hour is much different than 1-2% per day or per week or whatever.
        jazoom 8y ago
        I assume that's Android's stats about what % of battery each app uses. If so, time doesn't add anything.
orliesaurus 8y ago
Dns666 is great and doesn't require your phone to be roolted. It basically acts as a local VPN client/server combo on your phone to handle the blocking. Only downside is that sometimes you have to reboot the app when it shutdown automatically for unknown reason to me. Pro-tip if you have difficulties in getting the latest updates for one or more of the inbuilt blacklist host files, try to edit manually their URL to be httpS. It worked for me!
- michaelcampbell 8y ago
  Only issue is I need to use a company VPN (and when I choose to, a personal one), pretty often and they can't co-exist with DNS66, so it has to be restarted whenever I log off of either.
- amoshi 8y ago
  Try "Block This!", operates in the same manner but never crashes (at least on my machine ™)
mlrtime 8y ago
For Samsung owners I've heard good things about SABS: https://www.androidsage.com/2018/03/29/download-install-sabs-simple-ad-blocker-for-samsung/ https://www.androidsage.com/2018/03/29/download-install-sabs...
misbahshozab 8y ago
https://thatssoft.com/macsome-itunes-converter-crack/ https://thatssoft.com/macsome-itunes-converter-crack/
Fnoord 8y ago
I'm using Pi-Hole on an Ubiquiti router together with WireGuard and DNSSEC. My Synology NAS is backup (with regards to the DNS-based Pi-Hole blocking) taking the adblocking load off the router (there's no redundancy for WireGuard endpoint though). I don't (need) to use a RPi anymore. It works extremely well for me, and all my clients also get to connect to Nextcloud running on the Synology. My setup does far more than just blocking ads, and works transparent as long as the client is connected through WireGuard (which works seamlessly over LTE and public WiFi). That being said, I really like how Blokada and DNS66 are available in F-Droid [1] [2], and require minimal technical knowledge to set up. The more [ad blocking], the merrier. As a backup measure I use Firefox with uBlock. The only machine I don't use uBlock is on Kali because I want to see the website exactly as it is being served. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/org.blokada.alarm/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.blokada.alarm/ [2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/
- alias_neo 8y ago
  It's interesting you've found the WireGuard experience to be "seamless". I have a WireGuard VPN at home and experimented with always-on, on my Android phone. Unfortunately, my provider (EE, UK) throttles UDP traffic something rotten, and my normally great experience with 50/50Mb+ is severly limited to between 0 and 10 Mb making my phone almost unusable by normal standards. Does your LTE provider not throttle this way, or have you found a way around this?
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    On the 2 SIM cards I have (Vodafone NL and KPN NL) they don't throttle, as that's illegal, but the plans have data limits (after the limit they just disable 4G for you) and perhaps they do some QoS though. Public WiFi I mainly use Dutch railways (NS) in trains which uses T-Mobile NL. You (or well, anyone, AFAIK) cannot use that to watch on-demand movies though. But I just have that kind of material synced up locally. Same with audio (albeit through Spotify Premium). So with most of my video and audio synced up locally (and the same's true with regards to recent Nextcloud pictures) I end up with mainly traditional websites or apps or an OS/application update or so. That being said, have you attempted to discuss the issue with them? Have you considered a non-default UDP port? Also, did you compare the usage with OpenVPN? I ran OpenVPN before, the roaming, network speed, and latency is quite terrible.
Forbo 8y ago
What does DNS66 offer over NetGuard? Near as I can tell, they both use the VPN functionality to work, both don't require root, and both are available on F-Droid. Edit: I guess Blokada is another to consider, just heard of it from this thread.
jonwinstanley 8y ago
So you're sending ALL your internet traffic through a VPN, that you know nothing about? Sounds like the craziest idea I've ever heard. Who owns the VPN? What are they doing with your data?
- Spivak 8y ago
  "Using the Android VPN feature" != "Tunneling traffic through a remote network"
  - jonwinstanley 8y ago
    Oh - it's a private VPN? Sorry, that wasn't clear in the article
- dest 8y ago
  Isn't it a local VPN?
- r3bl 8y ago
  ...no? You create a virtual "VPN" that filters out traffic based on hostnames. DNS requests that are not on the blacklist get forwarded to your DNS of choice. Other adblockers for non-rooted Android (like NetGuard) work in the same way.
  - ddstvsucks 8y ago
    Also limits your use of an actual VPN as well. Thanks Obama!
- citiguy 8y ago
  I have a pi-hole running on a Digital Ocean Droplet and have a secure vpn to that. Both run out of docker containers, so theoretically they could run anywhere. It works great and only costs me $5/month. No ads anymore either, and I figure DO probably doesn't care too much about my web traffic - though maybe I'm wrong on that. The only thing that is slightly annoying is that the iPhone seems to drop the VPN from time to time. If only there was a way to work that out....
gesman 8y ago
Anything like possible on iPhone?
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  I use 1Blocker X and don't see any ads.
  - eugeniub 8y ago
    1Blocker X only blocks ads in Safari. It doesn't block in-app ads, such as the ads in the YouTube app.
- gvurrdon 8y ago
  This works well: https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-for-ios/ https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-for-ios/ ...but, updates to the app will no longer be allowed, so it will eventually stop working on some future iOS update, by which point I hope to have found an alternative platform. https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-pro-discontinued/ https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-pro-discontinued/
Timothycquinn 8y ago
Great idea but what if you want to use a separate VPN service which is disabled by this app? Does this VPN just cover DNS or does it secure all traffic? When on public wifi, I want to have PIA VPN enabled. Does this secure all DNS traffic like Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 app? If it does, I may use it with the exception of public wifi.
- Forbo 8y ago
  Near as I can tell, there's no way to run an actual VPN alongside something like this. I've been wanting to figure something out myself. Thinking more and more that I just want to set up a DNS tunnel to my home network and set up a PiHole there for similar functionality.
jandeboevrie 8y ago
Even at night when you don't use your phone, you are tracked and served ads. I use blokada and it blocks over 5000 ads and trackers in three days, 12 hours of effective usage, meaning 400+ ads/h: https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_phone_serves_me_400_ads_per_hour_blokada_blocks_beats_them_all.html https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_phone_serves_me_400_ads_per_hou... Blokada is easier to use that dns66, just one big button and you're done. It doesn't require root, but just like this app uses a local vpn (on the device itself, no servers involved). For me it even blocks ads inside the YouTube app, which Adguard on iOS couldn't do...
- kayone 8y ago
  which filters do you use? I tried for so long to get youtube ads to block and at the end, I just gave up.
  - hivacruz 8y ago
    Youtube ads are hard to block. Use NewPipe to watch videos there
8bithero 8y ago
https://adguard.com https://adguard.com has a similar approach using VPN. Would be interested to know if anyone has compared battery drain of the various apps
- ameshkov 8y ago
  Well, it is not that similar. DNS66 is just a DNS changer/filter, AdGuard is a full-scale traffic filter and firewall: https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-vs-adaway-dns66/ https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-vs-adaway-dns66/
phkahler 8y ago
I wish the play store would just let me filter based on app intrusiveness. Let me find things that don't use ads, don't have in-app purchases, and don't collect data. Looking at "paid" apps is NOT equivalent. Then I can maybe read reviews and get what I want. Once the quality bar has been raised I don't have any problem paying a few bucks (or more) for an app that behaves the way I want.
- thisisweirdok 8y ago
  Hell, some paid apps have ads which drives me insane.
  - thrill 8y ago
    Yeah, that should be an app store foul.
  - derimagia 8y ago
    It's been a while since I've seen that but would drive me crazy too. I would immediately get a refund for it and review it appropriately.
- DFXLuna 8y ago
  Agreed. I bet there's quite a bit of money out there waiting for whomever starts making paid, tracking-free alternatives to popular free apps.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    If the costs are one-off costs, then probably. However, for any services that result in ongoing costs to maintain, it'll mean Yet Another Subscription Service, for which there is already a high amount of fatigue and animosity towards.
- rubenbe 8y ago
  On the "don't collect data", I can recommend "exodus privacy" which shows permissions and trackers that are present in your installed apps. You can search them online [0] or show the analysis of the apps you already have installed [1] [0] https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/search/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/search/ [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.eu.exodus_privacy.exodusprivacy https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.eu.exodus_... Fosdem talk that explains all of this in more detail: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/analysis_of_the_behavior_of_mobile_applications_and_its_consequences_for_our_privacy/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/analysis_of_the_behav...
ddstvsucks 8y ago
su root + adaway + afwall. Accept no imitations.
rohan1024 8y ago
The way Google is dealing with AdBlockers at the moment soon all these VPN based apps will be taken off Play Store.
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  DNS66 isn't on the Play Store- you have to sideload it from F-droid or github.
- jasonvorhe 8y ago
  What is Google doing to Adblockers?
kyriakos 8y ago
Been using https://blokada.org/ https://blokada.org/ Which works the same way with good results. Helps a lot to save on mobile data.
mlevental 8y ago
doesn't work for YouTube
chewz 8y ago
Since Android Pie uses DNS-over-TLS it is very easy to setup DNS-based ad-blocking yourself. It requires only dnscrypt-proxy and nginx. [1] - https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki/Connecting-to-a-remote-dnscrypt-proxy-client-from-Android-Pie-using-DNS-over-TLS https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki/Connecting-t...
cheald 8y ago
On Android 9, you can do this even more easily: Settings -> Network & Internet -> Advanced -> Private DNS -> set provider hostname to "dns.adguard.com" Adguard functionally operates similar to a Pihole install - it just maintains a DNS-based blacklist. You give them your DNS queries, of course, but in return you get an almost entirely ad-free experience with just one setting.
- elektor 8y ago
  This is definitely simpler, thank you.
- esseti 8y ago
  how good is the dns? in term of speed and privacy. PS: all the dns are resolved via that dns or it's added (piled) to the list of default dns resolvers?
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    You'll have to make your device use the server, so I think you'll at least have to add it to the front of the list.
- proxygeek 8y ago
  I wasted almost an hour trying unsuccessfully to book a cab using Uber yesterday only to realise it was 1.1.1.1 in my Private DNS which was the problem. I had internet access just fine (browsers) but Signal, Google Maps, Uber and Ola just wouldn't work with 1.1.1.1. Haven't gotten around to think about the reason
  - corint 8y ago
    Me too.. Waze wasn't working and Spotify was taking ages to decide it wasn't offline. On EE in the UK if that helps?
  - Tsubasachan 8y ago
    I use DNS66 and I have to pause it any time I use a app that involves Google.
fulafel 8y ago
So this is a userspace app that reconstitutes the VPN encapsulated datagrams into outgoing networking socket API calls, a bit like slirp in ye olde days? I can't imagine this process is very lossless, does it really properly handle multicast, ipv6, protocols other than tcp and udp, etc? edit: apparently, the Android VPN is flexible enough that they can direct only DNS traffic through this process, which mitigates it quite a bit. This issue has some tech details: https://github.com/julian-klode/dns66/issues/193 https://github.com/julian-klode/dns66/issues/193
towb 8y ago
When it's between 10+ ads per hour or very expensive monthly premium for a pretty bad but addictive game, this is at least a battery saver.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Has anyone done testing to see what having an always-on VPN for adblocking does to battery usage? Also, I have an actual VPN for my Android phone that I turn on whenever I'm on coffee shop wifi, so it seems like it would be impossible to have both running at once.
- michaelcampbell 8y ago
  > so it seems like it would be impossible to have both running at once. It is. You need to restart the adblocker VPN when done (at least DNS66 operates this way). That said, I haven't found a measurable difference in battery when using one.
baybal2 8y ago
Too bad, a truckload of app these days intentionally hardcode ad server IPs and check for blocking.
fs111 8y ago
I run unbound DNS + openvpn on a raspberry pi to do the same. Works pretty well.
richdougherty 8y ago
For those struggling to keep their VPN app alive on Android Pie, you can disable the "Battery Optimisation" feature on a per-app basis. The setting lives under Apps & notifications / Special app access / Battery optimisation / <App name e.g. Blokada> / Don't optimise. I still think this is a battery win because of all the ads I'm not downloading and displaying.
ignoramous 8y ago
I posted a comment on how to do this (without requiring root or installing 3p apps for Android 4 and above) here on a HN thread on AdGuard DNS. Copy-paste from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788410 For anyone running on Android 9 or later, navigate to Settings -> WiFi and Internet -> Private DNS Select Private DNS provider hostname Add dns.adguard.com (DNS over TLS) Click save. Visit https://segment.com https://segment.com and you should see browser's 'Server not found' (disable existing ad-blockers or they might jump in and block the website anyway). --- For anyone on Android 4.0 or later, consider using Intra [0] to use AdGuard DNS over HTTPS, if you prefer it over cloudflare's or google's. Install Intra. Open the app, click on Settings. Choose customer URL and paste: https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query Be sure to 'lock the app' to prevent it from being killed in the background, and enable 'Auto Start' for the app from installed apps settings page if on newer android versions that support it. [0] https://getintra.org https://getintra.org
gammateam 8y ago
reads article to see anything has changed since 2014 VPN and host file? In my apps I would just check the host file or ping a certain address to detect if a user was doing this I would then serve a different kind of ad, shrug emoji
ywecur 8y ago
None of these DNS blockers have ever worked on YouTube for me, nor any of my other streaming apps. Honestly the only real solution I've found is to use Ublock Origin in Firefox for Android.
d2p 8y ago
> Because the app is open source, if it was doing anything shady, it would be found out This is a little misleading... Just because there is source code on GitHub does not mean the random APK you're downloading from the internet and side-loading is safe. If you're paranoid (and you probably should be - if I was a bad person and wanted to get malware onto your machines, I'd be making some useful "open source" app and publishing "its source code" on GitHub too), you'd want to build the app yourself! :)
- sandov 8y ago
  To be honest, most people wouldn't even bother to know if it was open source, they would install it anyway. Actually most people probably don't know what "open source" means. It would work against the HN crowd though.
Marsymars 8y ago
I'm all-in for blocking ads, but I've found full-OS ad-blockers to be entirely unnecessary - I simply don't use apps with ads. The few apps with ads that I sometimes can't avoid aren't fixable by ad-blockers. (e.g. ads in Google Maps)
- turtlebits 8y ago
  I use Blokada and it blocks a lot of telemetry data. Saves my data usage as well. I don't use any apps with ads, but Blokada has reported blocking ~100k requests a week on my phone.
  - Marsymars 8y ago
    Does it have an effective breakdown of number and destination of requests per app? I prefer to generally leave telemetry enabled, and simply not use apps from publishers whom I don't trust to use it responsibly.
on_and_off 8y ago
>It's important that free apps continue to be made, and app developers need money to go on doing what they do. So if you can't stand ads in your apps, try to support them in another way, by making a donation or paying a few bucks for the full version of their app. It feels more than a little disingenuous to post that at the end of a post explaining how to cut the revenue source of devs. If you don't want ads, how about you pay for the premium tier of the app ?
- Forbo 8y ago
  Because paying for something doesn't necessarily mean that they won't continue to use your information in the surveillance economy. You might not see ads anymore, but that doesn't mean that they're respecting your privacy.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    Smart TVs are a good example of this. And most Android phones. And some US ISPs. And Windows 10. And the Sidewalk Labs projects. I'm sure there are many other examples. You cannot expect what are effectively hostile entities to treat you well, just because you give them money.
  - on_and_off 8y ago
    That's 2 different topics though. Cutting ads does not also cut analytics frameworks. I wonder at which point apps will just start to bury analytics in their API calls and serve ads with their main payloads
scarejunba 8y ago
Can’t remember the last ad I saw on Android or iOS in an app. On the web, sure. In an app?
mesaframe 8y ago
A more actively worked on app which serves the same purpose would be https://blokada.org/ https://blokada.org/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
justanother- 8y ago
https://www.netguard.me/ https://www.netguard.me/ This is all you need. Block access to all addresses that have nothing to do with app vendor, not just for the sake of ads, but also to prevent your data leaking to data brokers. I have reviewed the code, if you pay the author "donation", all the ads he uses are disabled. You can also do much more, but you need to root your phone. Xposed framework, minmin guard, xprivacylua (fake information about your phone to the application, from phone number to location (I am regulary on south pole)), hide root,... And don't be afraid to root your phone, it only means that you have taken control for YOUR device. If you want to get rid of google that is doable too. Flash this lineage.microg.org . It will mimick google spyware (google framework) to apps and use yalp store (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.yeriomin.yalpstore/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.yeriomin.yalpstor...) to download applications from play store, while "Maps" application (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/) can replace google maps. We are in 2019, there is no need beeing held as hostage to your phone.
gwbas1c 8y ago
Honestly, I want something that blocks spam notifications. Specifically, things like "you have a free credit" notification from Lyft, or Amazon's "Check out our new sale" notification. My phone should not ding for nonsense like that. That is SPAM, and that is not something that I need to know immediately. The problem is that apps like Lyft and Amazon have rather important notifications, so blocking all notifications from those apps is not possible.
- whalabi 8y ago
  Oh boy I'm with you 100% Especially when it's an app I want or need, and it has notifications I need, but still sends out spammy ones too. I think this is possible on Android as you can give apps access to notifications, so it could filter them.
  - xur17 8y ago
    I want this for chrome on desktop as well. A large portion of websites are now asking for 'notification' permissions, when it most cases it makes no sense (think news websites).
    - whalabi 8y ago
      Yeah this bugs me too Also (although I'm going on a tangent now) there's mobile news sites that require 3 or 4 clicks before I can read the article: close the app download prompt, the gpdr prompt, the subscribe prompt, the video hovering over half the screen.... It's maddening.
- Cactus2018 8y ago
  > Specifically, things like "you have a free credit" notification from Lyft, I opened several tickets with Lyft complaining about this. In a recent version you can turn off. Settings -> Notification Preferences -> 'Discounts and News' = off.
sizzle 8y ago
I've been using blokada on Android and it's been a joy honestly, life without obtrusive ads taking up precious mobile screen real estate is hard to live without. When I use my partners phone it's like a carnival with all the flashy ads trying to get my attention. Good riddance. https://blokada.org https://blokada.org

182 points by whalabi 8y ago

> This is a free, open source app. Open source is important here because all your network requests will go through this app, and we need to make sure we can trust it. Because the app is open source, if it was doing anything shady, it would be found out. That's the statement that always bothers me because it's only true if you build the app yourself. This is giving people a simplistic view and a false sense of security.

Forbo 8y ago
If it's available on F-Droid, it can support reproducible builds, so that's at least one defense against it. https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/ https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/
- pieter_mj 8y ago
  Yes it's available on F-Droid (see comment# https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19208623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19208623), but currently I have a slight preference for Blokada.
  - e40 8y ago
    I use Blokada, and I have less problems using it than I did Dns66. Lots of things stopped working with the latter, but I have yet to find anything that doesn't work with Blokada. However, Blokada has lately been crashing or stopping or being killed. I'm on Android 9. I have to start it manually when the notification disappears.

gattilorenz 8y ago

Another alternative, on a rooted phone, is AdAway, which can be obtained on F-Droid ( https://f-droid.org/en/ https://f-droid.org/en/ ). I'm more than satisfied with it.

marceloneil 8y ago
AdAway is quite nice as it updates your hosts file directly rather than using the phones VPN feature, although the downside is you do need root.
trishmapow2 8y ago
Which filter lists do you use? I find a few ads still get through on the default settings.
- gattilorenz 8y ago
  https://pastebin.com/raw/L0011N6C https://pastebin.com/raw/L0011N6C Although to be honest I also use the Brave browser,so that might explain why I have so few ads when browsing. Yeah, I really hate them...
PkBuzios 8y ago
AdAway is, until today, the best option. All the other root-free alternatives requires the app to run on the background which may consume resources, battery or even crash and stop functioning.

sebsauvage 8y ago

I also did this: https://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=dns-blocklist-en https://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=dns-blocklist-en

hivacruz 8y ago

How does it compare with Blockada? https://blokada.org https://blokada.org

gamesbrainiac 8y ago
I've used both and Blockada is better mainly because it has a couple of killer features. One example is that it will keep the app alive, so that the power saving features of your phone does not kick in and turn it off.
- mlrtime 8y ago
  How does this affect battery life though?
  - nomadtwin 8y ago
    I have between 1-2% battery usage.
    - chrisper 8y ago
      You forgot to say what timeframe.
      - Dolores12 8y ago
        No matter what time frame 1-2% is 1-2%.
        chrisper 8y ago
        The time very much matters. 1-2% per hour is much different than 1-2% per day or per week or whatever.
        jazoom 8y ago
        I assume that's Android's stats about what % of battery each app uses. If so, time doesn't add anything.

orliesaurus 8y ago

Dns666 is great and doesn't require your phone to be roolted. It basically acts as a local VPN client/server combo on your phone to handle the blocking. Only downside is that sometimes you have to reboot the app when it shutdown automatically for unknown reason to me. Pro-tip if you have difficulties in getting the latest updates for one or more of the inbuilt blacklist host files, try to edit manually their URL to be httpS. It worked for me!

michaelcampbell 8y ago
Only issue is I need to use a company VPN (and when I choose to, a personal one), pretty often and they can't co-exist with DNS66, so it has to be restarted whenever I log off of either.
amoshi 8y ago
Try "Block This!", operates in the same manner but never crashes (at least on my machine ™)

mlrtime 8y ago

For Samsung owners I've heard good things about SABS: https://www.androidsage.com/2018/03/29/download-install-sabs-simple-ad-blocker-for-samsung/ https://www.androidsage.com/2018/03/29/download-install-sabs...

misbahshozab 8y ago

https://thatssoft.com/macsome-itunes-converter-crack/ https://thatssoft.com/macsome-itunes-converter-crack/

Fnoord 8y ago

I'm using Pi-Hole on an Ubiquiti router together with WireGuard and DNSSEC. My Synology NAS is backup (with regards to the DNS-based Pi-Hole blocking) taking the adblocking load off the router (there's no redundancy for WireGuard endpoint though). I don't (need) to use a RPi anymore. It works extremely well for me, and all my clients also get to connect to Nextcloud running on the Synology. My setup does far more than just blocking ads, and works transparent as long as the client is connected through WireGuard (which works seamlessly over LTE and public WiFi). That being said, I really like how Blokada and DNS66 are available in F-Droid [1] [2], and require minimal technical knowledge to set up. The more [ad blocking], the merrier. As a backup measure I use Firefox with uBlock. The only machine I don't use uBlock is on Kali because I want to see the website exactly as it is being served. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/org.blokada.alarm/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.blokada.alarm/ [2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/

alias_neo 8y ago
It's interesting you've found the WireGuard experience to be "seamless". I have a WireGuard VPN at home and experimented with always-on, on my Android phone. Unfortunately, my provider (EE, UK) throttles UDP traffic something rotten, and my normally great experience with 50/50Mb+ is severly limited to between 0 and 10 Mb making my phone almost unusable by normal standards. Does your LTE provider not throttle this way, or have you found a way around this?
- Fnoord 8y ago
  On the 2 SIM cards I have (Vodafone NL and KPN NL) they don't throttle, as that's illegal, but the plans have data limits (after the limit they just disable 4G for you) and perhaps they do some QoS though. Public WiFi I mainly use Dutch railways (NS) in trains which uses T-Mobile NL. You (or well, anyone, AFAIK) cannot use that to watch on-demand movies though. But I just have that kind of material synced up locally. Same with audio (albeit through Spotify Premium). So with most of my video and audio synced up locally (and the same's true with regards to recent Nextcloud pictures) I end up with mainly traditional websites or apps or an OS/application update or so. That being said, have you attempted to discuss the issue with them? Have you considered a non-default UDP port? Also, did you compare the usage with OpenVPN? I ran OpenVPN before, the roaming, network speed, and latency is quite terrible.

Forbo 8y ago

What does DNS66 offer over NetGuard? Near as I can tell, they both use the VPN functionality to work, both don't require root, and both are available on F-Droid. Edit: I guess Blokada is another to consider, just heard of it from this thread.

jonwinstanley 8y ago

So you're sending ALL your internet traffic through a VPN, that you know nothing about? Sounds like the craziest idea I've ever heard. Who owns the VPN? What are they doing with your data?

Spivak 8y ago
"Using the Android VPN feature" != "Tunneling traffic through a remote network"
- jonwinstanley 8y ago
  Oh - it's a private VPN? Sorry, that wasn't clear in the article
dest 8y ago
Isn't it a local VPN?
r3bl 8y ago
...no? You create a virtual "VPN" that filters out traffic based on hostnames. DNS requests that are not on the blacklist get forwarded to your DNS of choice. Other adblockers for non-rooted Android (like NetGuard) work in the same way.
- ddstvsucks 8y ago
  Also limits your use of an actual VPN as well. Thanks Obama!
citiguy 8y ago
I have a pi-hole running on a Digital Ocean Droplet and have a secure vpn to that. Both run out of docker containers, so theoretically they could run anywhere. It works great and only costs me $5/month. No ads anymore either, and I figure DO probably doesn't care too much about my web traffic - though maybe I'm wrong on that. The only thing that is slightly annoying is that the iPhone seems to drop the VPN from time to time. If only there was a way to work that out....

gesman 8y ago

Anything like possible on iPhone?

lotsofpulp 8y ago
I use 1Blocker X and don't see any ads.
- eugeniub 8y ago
  1Blocker X only blocks ads in Safari. It doesn't block in-app ads, such as the ads in the YouTube app.
gvurrdon 8y ago
This works well: https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-for-ios/ https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-for-ios/ ...but, updates to the app will no longer be allowed, so it will eventually stop working on some future iOS update, by which point I hope to have found an alternative platform. https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-pro-discontinued/ https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-pro-discontinued/

Timothycquinn 8y ago

Great idea but what if you want to use a separate VPN service which is disabled by this app? Does this VPN just cover DNS or does it secure all traffic? When on public wifi, I want to have PIA VPN enabled. Does this secure all DNS traffic like Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 app? If it does, I may use it with the exception of public wifi.

Forbo 8y ago
Near as I can tell, there's no way to run an actual VPN alongside something like this. I've been wanting to figure something out myself. Thinking more and more that I just want to set up a DNS tunnel to my home network and set up a PiHole there for similar functionality.

jandeboevrie 8y ago

Even at night when you don't use your phone, you are tracked and served ads. I use blokada and it blocks over 5000 ads and trackers in three days, 12 hours of effective usage, meaning 400+ ads/h: https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_phone_serves_me_400_ads_per_hour_blokada_blocks_beats_them_all.html https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_phone_serves_me_400_ads_per_hou... Blokada is easier to use that dns66, just one big button and you're done. It doesn't require root, but just like this app uses a local vpn (on the device itself, no servers involved). For me it even blocks ads inside the YouTube app, which Adguard on iOS couldn't do...

kayone 8y ago
which filters do you use? I tried for so long to get youtube ads to block and at the end, I just gave up.
- hivacruz 8y ago
  Youtube ads are hard to block. Use NewPipe to watch videos there

8bithero 8y ago

https://adguard.com https://adguard.com has a similar approach using VPN. Would be interested to know if anyone has compared battery drain of the various apps

ameshkov 8y ago
Well, it is not that similar. DNS66 is just a DNS changer/filter, AdGuard is a full-scale traffic filter and firewall: https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-vs-adaway-dns66/ https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-vs-adaway-dns66/

phkahler 8y ago

I wish the play store would just let me filter based on app intrusiveness. Let me find things that don't use ads, don't have in-app purchases, and don't collect data. Looking at "paid" apps is NOT equivalent. Then I can maybe read reviews and get what I want. Once the quality bar has been raised I don't have any problem paying a few bucks (or more) for an app that behaves the way I want.

thisisweirdok 8y ago
Hell, some paid apps have ads which drives me insane.
- thrill 8y ago
  Yeah, that should be an app store foul.
- derimagia 8y ago
  It's been a while since I've seen that but would drive me crazy too. I would immediately get a refund for it and review it appropriately.
DFXLuna 8y ago
Agreed. I bet there's quite a bit of money out there waiting for whomever starts making paid, tracking-free alternatives to popular free apps.
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  If the costs are one-off costs, then probably. However, for any services that result in ongoing costs to maintain, it'll mean Yet Another Subscription Service, for which there is already a high amount of fatigue and animosity towards.
rubenbe 8y ago
On the "don't collect data", I can recommend "exodus privacy" which shows permissions and trackers that are present in your installed apps. You can search them online [0] or show the analysis of the apps you already have installed [1] [0] https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/search/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/search/ [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.eu.exodus_privacy.exodusprivacy https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.eu.exodus_... Fosdem talk that explains all of this in more detail: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/analysis_of_the_behavior_of_mobile_applications_and_its_consequences_for_our_privacy/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/analysis_of_the_behav...

ddstvsucks 8y ago

su root + adaway + afwall. Accept no imitations.

rohan1024 8y ago

The way Google is dealing with AdBlockers at the moment soon all these VPN based apps will be taken off Play Store.

Tsubasachan 8y ago
DNS66 isn't on the Play Store- you have to sideload it from F-droid or github.
jasonvorhe 8y ago
What is Google doing to Adblockers?

kyriakos 8y ago

Been using https://blokada.org/ https://blokada.org/ Which works the same way with good results. Helps a lot to save on mobile data.

mlevental 8y ago

doesn't work for YouTube

chewz 8y ago

Since Android Pie uses DNS-over-TLS it is very easy to setup DNS-based ad-blocking yourself. It requires only dnscrypt-proxy and nginx. [1] - https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki/Connecting-to-a-remote-dnscrypt-proxy-client-from-Android-Pie-using-DNS-over-TLS https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki/Connecting-t...

cheald 8y ago

On Android 9, you can do this even more easily: Settings -> Network & Internet -> Advanced -> Private DNS -> set provider hostname to "dns.adguard.com" Adguard functionally operates similar to a Pihole install - it just maintains a DNS-based blacklist. You give them your DNS queries, of course, but in return you get an almost entirely ad-free experience with just one setting.

elektor 8y ago
This is definitely simpler, thank you.
esseti 8y ago
how good is the dns? in term of speed and privacy. PS: all the dns are resolved via that dns or it's added (piled) to the list of default dns resolvers?
- solarkraft 8y ago
  You'll have to make your device use the server, so I think you'll at least have to add it to the front of the list.
proxygeek 8y ago
I wasted almost an hour trying unsuccessfully to book a cab using Uber yesterday only to realise it was 1.1.1.1 in my Private DNS which was the problem. I had internet access just fine (browsers) but Signal, Google Maps, Uber and Ola just wouldn't work with 1.1.1.1. Haven't gotten around to think about the reason
- corint 8y ago
  Me too.. Waze wasn't working and Spotify was taking ages to decide it wasn't offline. On EE in the UK if that helps?
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  I use DNS66 and I have to pause it any time I use a app that involves Google.

fulafel 8y ago

So this is a userspace app that reconstitutes the VPN encapsulated datagrams into outgoing networking socket API calls, a bit like slirp in ye olde days? I can't imagine this process is very lossless, does it really properly handle multicast, ipv6, protocols other than tcp and udp, etc? edit: apparently, the Android VPN is flexible enough that they can direct only DNS traffic through this process, which mitigates it quite a bit. This issue has some tech details: https://github.com/julian-klode/dns66/issues/193 https://github.com/julian-klode/dns66/issues/193

towb 8y ago

When it's between 10+ ads per hour or very expensive monthly premium for a pretty bad but addictive game, this is at least a battery saver.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Has anyone done testing to see what having an always-on VPN for adblocking does to battery usage? Also, I have an actual VPN for my Android phone that I turn on whenever I'm on coffee shop wifi, so it seems like it would be impossible to have both running at once.

michaelcampbell 8y ago
> so it seems like it would be impossible to have both running at once. It is. You need to restart the adblocker VPN when done (at least DNS66 operates this way). That said, I haven't found a measurable difference in battery when using one.

baybal2 8y ago

Too bad, a truckload of app these days intentionally hardcode ad server IPs and check for blocking.

fs111 8y ago

I run unbound DNS + openvpn on a raspberry pi to do the same. Works pretty well.

richdougherty 8y ago

For those struggling to keep their VPN app alive on Android Pie, you can disable the "Battery Optimisation" feature on a per-app basis. The setting lives under Apps & notifications / Special app access / Battery optimisation / <App name e.g. Blokada> / Don't optimise. I still think this is a battery win because of all the ads I'm not downloading and displaying.

ignoramous 8y ago

I posted a comment on how to do this (without requiring root or installing 3p apps for Android 4 and above) here on a HN thread on AdGuard DNS. Copy-paste from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788410 For anyone running on Android 9 or later, navigate to Settings -> WiFi and Internet -> Private DNS Select Private DNS provider hostname Add dns.adguard.com (DNS over TLS) Click save. Visit https://segment.com https://segment.com and you should see browser's 'Server not found' (disable existing ad-blockers or they might jump in and block the website anyway). --- For anyone on Android 4.0 or later, consider using Intra [0] to use AdGuard DNS over HTTPS, if you prefer it over cloudflare's or google's. Install Intra. Open the app, click on Settings. Choose customer URL and paste: https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query Be sure to 'lock the app' to prevent it from being killed in the background, and enable 'Auto Start' for the app from installed apps settings page if on newer android versions that support it. [0] https://getintra.org https://getintra.org

gammateam 8y ago

reads article to see anything has changed since 2014 VPN and host file? In my apps I would just check the host file or ping a certain address to detect if a user was doing this I would then serve a different kind of ad, shrug emoji

ywecur 8y ago

None of these DNS blockers have ever worked on YouTube for me, nor any of my other streaming apps. Honestly the only real solution I've found is to use Ublock Origin in Firefox for Android.

d2p 8y ago

> Because the app is open source, if it was doing anything shady, it would be found out This is a little misleading... Just because there is source code on GitHub does not mean the random APK you're downloading from the internet and side-loading is safe. If you're paranoid (and you probably should be - if I was a bad person and wanted to get malware onto your machines, I'd be making some useful "open source" app and publishing "its source code" on GitHub too), you'd want to build the app yourself! :)

sandov 8y ago
To be honest, most people wouldn't even bother to know if it was open source, they would install it anyway. Actually most people probably don't know what "open source" means. It would work against the HN crowd though.

Marsymars 8y ago

I'm all-in for blocking ads, but I've found full-OS ad-blockers to be entirely unnecessary - I simply don't use apps with ads. The few apps with ads that I sometimes can't avoid aren't fixable by ad-blockers. (e.g. ads in Google Maps)

turtlebits 8y ago
I use Blokada and it blocks a lot of telemetry data. Saves my data usage as well. I don't use any apps with ads, but Blokada has reported blocking ~100k requests a week on my phone.
- Marsymars 8y ago
  Does it have an effective breakdown of number and destination of requests per app? I prefer to generally leave telemetry enabled, and simply not use apps from publishers whom I don't trust to use it responsibly.

on_and_off 8y ago

>It's important that free apps continue to be made, and app developers need money to go on doing what they do. So if you can't stand ads in your apps, try to support them in another way, by making a donation or paying a few bucks for the full version of their app. It feels more than a little disingenuous to post that at the end of a post explaining how to cut the revenue source of devs. If you don't want ads, how about you pay for the premium tier of the app ?

Forbo 8y ago
Because paying for something doesn't necessarily mean that they won't continue to use your information in the surveillance economy. You might not see ads anymore, but that doesn't mean that they're respecting your privacy.
- deogeo 8y ago
  Smart TVs are a good example of this. And most Android phones. And some US ISPs. And Windows 10. And the Sidewalk Labs projects. I'm sure there are many other examples. You cannot expect what are effectively hostile entities to treat you well, just because you give them money.
- on_and_off 8y ago
  That's 2 different topics though. Cutting ads does not also cut analytics frameworks. I wonder at which point apps will just start to bury analytics in their API calls and serve ads with their main payloads

scarejunba 8y ago

Can’t remember the last ad I saw on Android or iOS in an app. On the web, sure. In an app?

mesaframe 8y ago

A more actively worked on app which serves the same purpose would be https://blokada.org/ https://blokada.org/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

justanother- 8y ago

https://www.netguard.me/ https://www.netguard.me/ This is all you need. Block access to all addresses that have nothing to do with app vendor, not just for the sake of ads, but also to prevent your data leaking to data brokers. I have reviewed the code, if you pay the author "donation", all the ads he uses are disabled. You can also do much more, but you need to root your phone. Xposed framework, minmin guard, xprivacylua (fake information about your phone to the application, from phone number to location (I am regulary on south pole)), hide root,... And don't be afraid to root your phone, it only means that you have taken control for YOUR device. If you want to get rid of google that is doable too. Flash this lineage.microg.org . It will mimick google spyware (google framework) to apps and use yalp store (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.yeriomin.yalpstore/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.yeriomin.yalpstor...) to download applications from play store, while "Maps" application (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/) can replace google maps. We are in 2019, there is no need beeing held as hostage to your phone.

gwbas1c 8y ago

Honestly, I want something that blocks spam notifications. Specifically, things like "you have a free credit" notification from Lyft, or Amazon's "Check out our new sale" notification. My phone should not ding for nonsense like that. That is SPAM, and that is not something that I need to know immediately. The problem is that apps like Lyft and Amazon have rather important notifications, so blocking all notifications from those apps is not possible.

whalabi 8y ago
Oh boy I'm with you 100% Especially when it's an app I want or need, and it has notifications I need, but still sends out spammy ones too. I think this is possible on Android as you can give apps access to notifications, so it could filter them.
- xur17 8y ago
  I want this for chrome on desktop as well. A large portion of websites are now asking for 'notification' permissions, when it most cases it makes no sense (think news websites).
  - whalabi 8y ago
    Yeah this bugs me too Also (although I'm going on a tangent now) there's mobile news sites that require 3 or 4 clicks before I can read the article: close the app download prompt, the gpdr prompt, the subscribe prompt, the video hovering over half the screen.... It's maddening.
Cactus2018 8y ago
> Specifically, things like "you have a free credit" notification from Lyft, I opened several tickets with Lyft complaining about this. In a recent version you can turn off. Settings -> Notification Preferences -> 'Discounts and News' = off.

sizzle 8y ago

I've been using blokada on Android and it's been a joy honestly, life without obtrusive ads taking up precious mobile screen real estate is hard to live without. When I use my partners phone it's like a carnival with all the flashy ads trying to get my attention. Good riddance. https://blokada.org https://blokada.org