Ad blocking on android

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

All the people suggesting firefox…

https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/8b1cc7fc-7c76-4fc5-b00b-5920f4e43449.jpeg

ehyuman, 10 months ago

read what?

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

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

Very clearly asking for something else, but people repeatedly recommend OP uses firefox… SMH

Holzkohlen, 10 months ago

Cause the answer is to just deal with it. OP is going on a damn journey instead of just using the browser that feels a bit slow to him. Just use it to pirate on your phone and use another browser for whatever else you want. It’s really not that difficult.

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

Some people actually enjoy taking journey’s and exploring new things. Stagnation is boring.

There’s lots of tools in the tool box, you don’t have to use the hammer exclusively. Try a bit of variety. You might just like it.

Morgikan, 10 months ago

They keep responding that way because OP is looking for a magic bullet. They are basically wanting something that is only positives and has no drawbacks.

You’re either going to increase latency in the app, increase latency across the network, have to pay for something, have to use an app you don’t prefer, etc.

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

OP asked for some new (to them) options, of which there are plenty. Instead some people are re-listing the things op’s already said they’ve tried.

Not even remotely helpful. If you don’t have anything new to suggest, just don’t suggest anything. Instead have a read through some of the actually helpful comments others have posted.

Nimous, 10 months ago

You’re a man of culture

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

tips tophat

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

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.

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

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.

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

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.

glue_snorter, 10 months ago

Tailscale ftw!

I use tailscale as a mullvad client. Really happy with both.

terminhell, 10 months ago

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).

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

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.

CmdrShepard, 10 months ago

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.

Darkassassin07, 10 months ago

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).

timou, 10 months ago

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 ?

ToNIX, 10 months ago

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.

darcy, 10 months ago

i dont mean be that guy, but opera is chinese spyware, and firefox is worth the switch. trust me, i used to love opera, but now using firefox (librewolf/mull), i could never go back

xyzinferno, 10 months ago

Looking it up online, the subject of Opera being chinese spyware seems to be debated pretty thoroughly, but with no definitive consensus (that I could find at least). Any articles on the subject I could read up on?

I use Firefox myself, so it wouldn’t really impact my internet usage, but I’m just curious about what’s going on with Opera.

Funnily enough, I think the last time I used Opera was the Internet Channel on the Wii way back when, which was powered by Opera lmao

hexagonwin, 10 months ago

Opera was acquired by a chinese consortium back in 2016 or so. IMO opera telemetry isn’t too different from other proprietary browsers like chrome or edge but there were also some controversial decisions on Opera such as not removing a chinese CA cert (wosign?) that was being widely misused etc.

RogueBanana, 10 months ago

Not only that I am pretty sure every Chinese company are forced to hand over data by law if requested by the government so there’s that.

darcy, 10 months ago

to be fair, so do US companies to the US government, whether or not it is as common

darcy, 10 months ago

any software (especially a browser) that is not open source is not to be trusted.

TheKarion, 10 months ago

Firefox with uorigin

Lorindol, 10 months ago

This. I haven’t had ads since Adblock came out in 2009. I switched to uBlock Origin few years ago, without it browsing would be intolerable.

Last spring I helped a colleague with her work laptop and saw Chrome without adblocker. It was hideous.

I installed uOrigin instantly and got the reputation of “Tech Wizard Who Can Make Ads Go Away”. Turned out that almost no one had ever even heard of this possibility.

Kekzkrieger, 10 months ago

Wait since when is firefox considered slow ? For me the speed is decent i dont have a 1000$ phone so i dont expect it to be as fast as on my pc

hexagonwin, 10 months ago

Though I feel Firefox (and its fork Fennec FDroid) is a lot slower than other browsers based on Chromium like Bromite and Kiwi. I’m using a phone that’s pretty low-end in 2023 standard though. (MSM8974 with 2GB ram running Android 11)

monotrox, 10 months ago

Im basically exclusively using Firefox on my phone and loading websites is pretty fast, the app just feels less responsive when scrolling compared to chrome/bromite

Nimous, 10 months ago

It’s fast enough to be enjoyable but opera has a nicer UI and since you can’t use extensions, the speed is consistent.

Kekzkrieger, 10 months ago

opera is chinese spyware tho, just for a nice ui thats not worth

Nimous, 10 months ago

My plan is returning to firefox but I have too much stuff in the opera’s Flow. I must spend some time in future to fix this and abandon opera.

moralesformiles, 10 months ago

Why not change your system DNS to the public AdGuard address? Then you don’t need to use the app. DNS filtering is still more limited than uBlock, of course, but if you refuse to use browsers where that’s available, I think that’s the next best option.

kingtysonsworld, 10 months ago

yo thanks I forgot that was an option, this is way better than using Blokada actually 👍

Gargari, 10 months ago

Firefox + unlock Origin. Use alternative opens-source apps. DNS: Adguard, NextDNS, etc.

Skimmer, 10 months ago

Firefox with uBlock Origin is by far the best option, the only other browser that comes close is Brave, their content blocking and such is pretty good, so I’d recommend trying them if you’re hellbent on not using FF. I’d also recommend looking into NextDNS for system-wide ad/tracker blocking in conjuction with the browser.

eroc1990, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

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

zero_iq, 10 months ago

Firefox + uBlock origin, and reVanced for YouTube ad-blocking/other features.

angelfire, 10 months ago

Easiest solution I found was manually setting a Private DNS on Android. Adguard public DNS address filters pretty much all of them.

glue_snorter, 10 months ago

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.

AnonymousLlama, 10 months ago

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

PotatoesFall, 10 months ago

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!

tomatobeard, 10 months ago

Thanks for this! I use Windscribe VPN and really like it. Didn’t realize there is a free tier for Control D.

PotatoesFall, 10 months ago

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.

jimmy90, 10 months ago

Firefox and Kiwi browsers both support full Ublock Origin

Elkenders, 10 months ago

Perhaps worth trying kiwis built in adblocking before you start. I recently installed kiwi so I could run ‘i still don’t care about cookies’. Seems really nice

noodlejetski, 10 months ago

NextDNS

stebo02, 10 months ago

is this any better than adguard dns or just similar?

noodlejetski, 10 months ago

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.

stebo02, 10 months ago

actually I’m just using the public dns so I don’t think I can do that

Pyrrhichios, 10 months ago

Seconded. NextDNS is incredible and you don’t even have to subscribe to get the benefit unless you’re a super heavy user.

idkman, 10 months ago

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.

thecoolowl, 10 months ago

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.

PolarisFx, 10 months ago

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.