Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Block Ads in Apps on Android

unlikekinds.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 150 posts

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#121

Post by amoshi »

orliesaurus wrote: post #7

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 b…

Try "Block This!", operates in the same manner but never crashes (at least on my machine ™)

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#122

Post by whalabi »

gwbas1c wrote: post #119

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…

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.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#123

Post by whalabi »

cheald wrote: post #46

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.

Can you customise the blacklist?

I found that video ad providers weren't in the usual lists...

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#124

Post by e40 »

pieter_mj wrote: post #42
Forbo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Yes it's available on F-Droid (see comment# https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19208623 ), but currently I have a slight preference for Blokada.

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.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#125

Post by Cactus2018 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #119

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…

> 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.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#126

Post by whalabi »

Tsubasachan wrote: post #71
4mitkumar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I use DNS66 and I have to pause it any time I use a app that involves Google.

In DNS66, in the apps tab, you can bypass the VPN by app.

I think I tried this and had mixed results though.

For me I only had twitter glitching at one point, but it doesn't now

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#127

Post by xur17 »

whalabi wrote: post #122
gwbas1c wrote: post #119

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…

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.

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).

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#128

Post by jheuel »

cheald wrote: post #46

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.

Except that my Pixel 2 restarts every few hours if I set that up.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#129

Post by whalabi »

xur17 wrote: post #127
whalabi wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

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.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#130

Post by IronWolve »

4mitkumar wrote: post #59
cheald wrote: post #46

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.

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

1.1.1.1 has issues with archive sites, had to stop using it. Cloudflare blamed the archive sites, but it works with other dns services, so I just stopped using 1.1.1.1.

Interestingly at work, I found out we couldnt even route to 1.1.1.1, but gave something to the network team to work on.

I too, jumped on the 1.1.1.1 bandwagon when lanched.

Post reply on HN