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Block Ads in Apps on Android

unlikekinds.com

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Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#31

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.

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.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#32

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.

Hell, some paid apps have ads which drives me insane.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#34
post #12

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 tha…

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?

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#35

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.

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.

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#36

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.

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/

[1] 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_behav...

Re: Block Ads in Apps on Android

#39

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.

Hell, some paid apps have ads which drives me insane.

Yeah, that should be an app store foul.
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