I would like to pirate on my phone sometimes and the ads on websites are problem. I’m not newbie, 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; opera has an ad blocker but it’s a joke compared to uBlock. I’m in a restricted country and my phone is not rooted, so if I use ad block apps like AdAway or Adgaurd they need to create a VPN connection in order to function unless the phone is rooted, and that VPN connection doesn’t let me to enable another VPN in order to visit filtered websites or apps.
I’m not stuck, but felt if I ask here there may be another smart solution for ad blocking on android that can solve these small problems; and the solution would help other people so be kind and provide what you have.
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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.
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).
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.
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.
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).
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
Tailscale ftw!
I use tailscale as a mullvad client. Really happy with both.
All the people suggesting firefox…
You’re a man of culture
tips tophat
read what?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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
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
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.
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.
to be fair, so do US companies to the US government, whether or not it is as common
any software (especially a browser) that is not open source is not to be trusted.
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
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
It’s fast enough to be enjoyable but opera has a nicer UI and since you can’t use extensions, the speed is consistent.
opera is chinese spyware tho, just for a nice ui thats not worth
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.
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)
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.
yo thanks I forgot that was an option, this is way better than using Blokada actually 👍
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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.
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.
Firefox + unlock Origin. Use alternative opens-source apps. DNS: Adguard, NextDNS, etc.
Firefox + uBlock origin, and reVanced for YouTube ad-blocking/other features.
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
Easiest solution I found was manually setting a Private DNS on Android. Adguard public DNS address filters pretty much all of them.
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
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.
https://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!
Thanks for this! I use Windscribe VPN and really like it. Didn’t realize there is a free tier for Control D.
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.
NextDNS
is this any better than adguard dns or just similar?
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.
actually I’m just using the public dns so I don’t think I can do that
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Seconded. NextDNS is incredible and you don’t even have to subscribe to get the benefit unless you’re a super heavy user.
Firefox and Kiwi browsers both support full Ublock Origin
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
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