Best Adblocking solutions for rooted phone, no VPN? - OnePlus 7 Questions & Answers

I know the title is rather generic and not strictly related to OP7, but I didn't know where else to post, and as this applies to my OP7, I thought to post here.
OP7
OOS 10.0.7
Rooted, Magisk+TWRP
So far I have been using Blokada to stop ads and it's been a bliss, but the limitation of Android to only run one VPN at a time makes using another VPN a compromise.
Recently I decided to use NordVPN, but as the situation stays now, I must choose between really no ads (Blokada), or NordVPN, but rely on Nord's as filtering which isn't really doing much.
Can you recommend me some reliable Adblocking solutions for rooted phone that can work in parallel with NordVPN and do equally good job as Blokada is doing? I need to block apps across the whole system (apps, websites).
P.S. using YouTube Vanced, so that one is sorted.

Energized magisk module, energized.pro for info on which version best suits you

Adguard dns without any app

Isn't DNS ad-blocking problematic? I've been reading that apps and websites can detect ad- locking DNS and act strangely.
Also, some ISP may not like some DNS... What has been your experience with DNS Adblocking so far?

Hi
I'm using OP7T OOS Beta 7 at the moment. I've been using Blokada for a short time and liked it a lot. But a minor was indeed not being able to combine it with a VPN from another provider. So I tried Blokada VPN. I had the feeling that it was working smoother than the VPN I'm always using. And I like the way they handle accounts. So you could use Blokada and VPN together if you pay for the VPN from Blokada.
So what stopped me using it? Having a long time subscription at NordVPN. I'm not using a vpn much lately. My setup is as follows:
- setup private dns under settings-networks-private dns: dns.adguard.com
- setup Adaway from FDroid (you need root)
- setup NordVPN. Beware to use the apk from the website and not from the Play Store. Only the apk from the website has working cybersec functionality. It can be used together with Adaway.
I've no problems using a dns server that blocks ads and malware. Neither do I have problems using hosts file based blocking like Adaway. Besides that I'm using browsers like Privacy Browser, Firefox nightly, Bromite and ungoogled chromium. And I try not to use apps with ads.

SvenC said:
- setup private dns under settings-networks-private dns: dns.adguard.com
- setup Adaway from FDroid (you need root)
- setup NordVPN. Beware to use the apk from the website and not from the Play Store. Only the apk from the website has working cybersec functionality. It can be used together with Adaway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I made the same setup... Seems less strict compared to Blokada, but this I am sure is just a matter of hosts list in adaway.
Do you recommend any hosts in particular besides the ones already in Adaway?
Also, what kind of apps do you split tunnel in NordVPN? Or no need? Everything working as it should?

derei said:
Thanks, I made the same setup... Seems less strict compared to Blokada, but this I am sure is just a matter of hosts list in adaway.
Do you recommend any hosts in particular besides the ones already in Adaway?
Also, what kind of apps do you split tunnel in NordVPN? Or no need? Everything working as it should?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Be sure to update hosts file in Adaway regularly. I haven't changed any sources in Adaway. Just the standard setup. It blocks system wide and I don't want it to be too strict. Maybe I want to reach a domain sometimes on some site without hassle. You can start up "dns log"in Adaway and then just use your phone like you always do. It then monitors every request. After a while you can go back to Adaway to view which requests occurred. From there you can block domains that were allowed. Or allow domains that were blocked.
I'm not using vpn a lot lately as I'm in my home country. I use it especially when I'm abroad in less privacy conscious countries. That's why I haven't split anything. But I would just it more, I would split apps like Signal private messenger which are end to end encrypted, and apps that don't seem to work well going through the vpn tunnel.
If you are really concerned about your privacy/ISP, then you should setup VPN always on, or force apps to use vpn tunnel by using a firewall. Although opinions differ on this. To me that's overkill anyway. Do you have apps still showing ads? Or do you mean ads while browsing websites?

SvenC said:
Do you have apps still showing ads? Or do you mean ads while browsing websites?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, some apps are still showing placeholders. Didn't check all apps...but with Blokada I didn't even have the placeholders. Isn't a big nuisance, but if I can find a solution for it, for the better.
As for vpn usage... i just made some network speed tests... what do you see... it was better over the vpn. For some reason my isp was throttling my mobile (weird). So, I decided to allow NordVPN to always connect to the fastest server.
About tunneling, I was interested if any app misbehaves when on vpn (for example Netflix, or banking apps, if you personally encountered some issue).

derei said:
Yes, some apps are still showing placeholders. Didn't check all apps...but with Blokada I didn't even have the placeholders. Isn't a big nuisance, but if I can find a solution for it, for the better.
As for vpn usage... i just made some network speed tests... what do you see... it was better over the vpn. For some reason my isp was throttling my mobile (weird). So, I decided to allow NordVPN to always connect to the fastest server.
About tunneling, I was interested if any app misbehaves when on vpn (for example Netflix, or banking apps, if you personally encountered some issue).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I keep apps with ads at a minimum, so probably that's why I haven't any problems like that. I remember having problems setting up Payconiq and Transferwise while on vpn. After finishing the setup, only Transferwise still gives problems while on vpn. I don't have streaming or social apps besides Telegram and Keybase.
That said, if I didn't have a subscription from NordVPN, I would use Blokada and pay for its vpn. Everything in one app. But in case speed is important, probably Nord is a better option.

derei said:
Isn't DNS ad-blocking problematic? I've been reading that apps and websites can detect ad- locking DNS and act strangely.
Also, some ISP may not like some DNS... What has been your experience with DNS Adblocking so far?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may have the same problems you have with VPN apps, I have not had any problems for the moment and I have been using dns adguard for some time ... once there was a problem in the server and they crashed but just set '' automatic dns' 'until the problem is solved. In any case, if you don't have root the only way is vpn or dns

I tried the Magisk module Energized but couldn't make it work. I got an error that it was not compatible although I had systemless hosts installed. Otherwise it seemed promising.
I'm testing another app now: Nebulo. At first sight I like it very much. But don't download it from Google Play cause that's a very limited version. Downloading it from Aurora Droid seems the easiest way. It's like Blokada, but I like it more. You can add packages to block ads. And the choice is large. You have a lot of dns servers to choose from. You can test the speed of the servers. Not just a ping test, but a revolution test. You can use cache to avoid sending the same dns requests over and over to the server; to speed up browsing. And a lot of other settings. Worth taking a look at.

Tried Magisk module energized.pro module on another ROM with success now. Using private DNS settings in android combined with that module. My favorite setup at the moment.

Related

MyDNS, dns changer, no root, ad block, no tracking, netspeed on statusbar

Hey guys,
it's been awhile since i used to root my phone so was looking for a rootless adblock solution.
The best idea is to change your DNS with one of the various available who filter ads, tracking sites and phishing ones.
You may also want to change your DNS to defeat country related website filtering.
To change DNS on a rootless phone you need to route all traffic through a local VPN.
I've tried some firewalls and dns changers but unfortunately they were not up to my standards.
They were either coded poorly, using too many resources, not working with play store or using shady and too many permissions for my taste.
Eventually decided to make my own and to make it as simply as possible:
My DNS is a little apk of less than 25kb size, extremely optimized and with no impact on your phone.
When in background it will use around 3-4mb tops.
There are no shady permissions, no internet permission even. You can route the traffic locally without any fear, no data will ever leave your phone.
It won't use any battery nor data or cpu.
Since traffic is being routed locally anyway i've added an handy network speed indicator on status bar for devices with Android 6+
This was initially planned for myself only but after receiving some good feedbacks from many friends, i've decided to make it publicly available.
MyDNS will be available shortly after some of your feedbacks on Play Store for a coffee price, free here on XDA for a while.
Here are some ad block DNS :
Once you setup your new DNS, it may take a while for DNS cache to expire and your ADS to disappear. Either reboot or wait 10/15 min.
176.103.130.130, 176.103.130.131 block ads, trackers and phishing websites adguard.com
176.103.130.132, 176.103.130.134 block ads, trackers and phishing websites and adult content adguard.com
136.243.146.101 136.243.146.102 noad.zone
198.101.242.72 23.253.163.53 alternate-dns.com
Awesome! Works fantastic so far.
I too have tried a lot, Adguard seems to be the one I come back too.
Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk
Thanks, yes but in the end i'm an optimizer freak and realized all i needed was a simple dns redirect without any bells and whistles.
Also having the net speed on status bar allowed me to remove the various speed meters i had.
OpenDNS can block ads? Really?
salmanfarisy said:
OpenDNS can block ads? Really?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
they do afaik: opendns.com/no-more-ads/
MaxOptim said:
they do afaik: opendns.com/no-more-ads/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you misunderstood the article. No more ads in OpenDNS doesn't mean OpenDNS blocks ads.
salmanfarisy said:
I think you misunderstood the article. No more ads in OpenDNS doesn't mean OpenDNS blocks ads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you're right, i usually use the adguard ones so searched for more without really paying attention.
Thanks for pointing it out.
MaxOptim said:
you're right, i usually use the adguard ones so searched for more without really paying attention.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem.
Anyway, this is so simple and lightweight. Very nice. Unfortunately, what i need for now is a no root ad-blocking solution with more features. This is because Android allows only one app to use VPN at a time.
Maybe I can use this for my secondary device. Thanks. It's always nice to see a lightweight and minimalist application.
Going to give this a go.
States the XDA edition has now expired
i need it please
but it say exp for xda
Soo, xds version expired. Mod, can we get it removed not to confuse anyone?
How has it expired? The apk is still downloadable.
EDIT: I tried installing it and the app indicated that it had expired at the end of the install. The developer is evil.

Can't make adway work.

Hello xda users.. today im facing a big problem..
I have op6 with rooted (magisk installed). oos 9.02
Ive installed latest adway 4.0.11. Everything works fine (adway gets permisions.. etc). But he does not stop the ads.
In magisk i have ticked systemless hosts same for adway in prefs. What i am doing wrong?
I am missing something?
zubyro said:
What i am doing wrong?
I am missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't routed a phone for a few years now but I seem to remember Adaway wrote its hosts file to the system partition. And isn't it the way of Magisk to not write anything to system?
I use Adguard directly from Adguard.com. It just works, (apart from the odd time Oneplus closes it ,) and I ALWAYS have Google Pay working too - so no hassle at checkouts.
Ended up using dns66.. cant make adway to work..
zubyro said:
Ended up using dns66.. cant make adway to work..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have Adaway running on my rooted OP 6, but I'm not using that systemless switch you mentioned...
zubyro said:
Ended up using dns66.. cant make adway to work..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use AdAway v3.3. I have it working perfectly fine.
croques said:
I haven't routed a phone for a few years now but I seem to remember Adaway wrote its hosts file to the system partition. And isn't it the way of Magisk to not write anything to system?
I use Adguard directly from Adguard.com. It just works, (apart from the odd time Oneplus closes it ,) and I ALWAYS have Google Pay working too - so no hassle at checkouts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you. Adaway just doesn't do anything for me. Adguard just works, and it works very well.
On unrooted phones, the VPN adapter is used to reroute traffic. As I use a normal VPN permanently to prohibit carrier deep packet inspection, any adblocker relying on the VPN approach is a nogo for me as Android only supports one VPN connection at a time.
akxak said:
On unrooted phones, the VPN adapter is used to reroute traffic. As I use a normal VPN permanently to prohibit carrier deep packet inspection, any adblocker relying on the VPN approach is a nogo for me as Android only supports one VPN connection at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you totally. I would much prefer your way of a permanent VPN and to block ads some other way.. However,
I need Google Pay to work all the time and not be in an arms race with Google;
I need to block ads;
I need a VPN that always has good connection speeds for downloads and not just a high burst speed for a few seconds..
That little list just won't work together. And that last point seems impossible to achieve - certainly with the many VPN services I've tried. I'm currently using Mullvad when I need security but cannot recommend it for speed
I use an OP6 with Android 9, OOS 9.0.1 routed with Madison 17.2
I have Google Pay, Adaway and my permanent VPN with OpenVPN.
I use NordVPN for which I pay but it's reliable and fast, allows multiple connections from my home router and my mobile.
Reliable and without any problems.
akxak said:
On unrooted phones, the VPN adapter is used to reroute traffic. As I use a normal VPN permanently to prohibit carrier deep packet inspection, any adblocker relying on the VPN approach is a nogo for me as Android only supports one VPN connection at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Adguard works both in vpn or in proxy mode. But for proxy mode, root is required. Using Adguard for an year ans its always my fav adblocker.
If you're using Magisk, both Magisk and Adaway need to be set to systemless via the settings in each application.
For some reason Adaway 4.x just ignore the restart warning and then just press check for updates again and it'll start properly downloading the host files.
My Adaway has the systemless setting grayed out and not ticked. I'm using Adaway 3.3 from F-Droid which is the latest version, there's no version 4. It's not available on Google Play.
akxak said:
I use NordVPN for which I pay but it's reliable and fast, allows multiple connections from my home router and my mobile.
Reliable and without any problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well and good for you. TrustPilot (UK) gives them only 5.8/10. There are some good and bad comments - as to be expected -but this is recent post. It chimes with my own experiences of paid VPN - more promises than delivery.
Extremely slow server
Extremely slow servers. Absolutely horrible app. They make it next to impossible to select a specific server you've used in the past and instead give you an unsorted list of thousands of servers to manually scroll through and try to find the one you want. You can search for a server but if you do it this way you can't add it to favourites.
They advertise as fast for p2p, yet my speeds are the slowest I've ever experienced with a VPN, including those lousy free vpn.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm aware this is off-topic for Adaway; apologies to OP for possible thread hi-jacking; but if you are in to ad-blocking the next step is VPN
I use the app OpenVPN which gives me more control, speed of servers vary but I am satisfied.

Blokada settings

Hi
I've come from a rooted phone where I had a hosts file to block ads, but now on P30 with no root I'm struggling to find a good alternative. I have found blokada works but sometimes the system kills it, or it eats a lot of battery.
Can anyone recommend any settings or alternatives for adblocking?
Ps. This phone is otherwise perfect!
Bump! I also need to know a way to make this work!
I'm using AdGuard for 2 years now and it works perfect. SInce v3 was released it is I guess the best adblocker not requiring root. You might need to make a few settings, but nothing hard. Also, if you don't want to pay for it, you can use BlockThis.
Thanks, I've installed block this and it doesn't appear to get killed by battery management and it also isn't using any battery. Guess the trade off is there is very limited customisation available.
Also for those interested, blokada downloads block lists and filters traffic accordingly on your device, BlockThis directs all traffic to their DNS and so in a way filtering happens server side. Maybe that's why it is more battery efficient.
sheyac said:
Thanks, I've installed block this and it doesn't appear to get killed by battery management and it also isn't using any battery. Guess the trade off is there is very limited customisation available.
Also for those interested, blokada downloads block lists and filters traffic accordingly on your device, BlockThis directs all traffic to their DNS and so in a way filtering happens server side. Maybe that's why it is more battery efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just changed from Block-this to Blokada on my P10 on Pie and there's hardly any difference in battery drain. Set your dns in Blokada to Keweon instead of the default settings. Keweon is also an ad blocking dns.

Nord VPN not blocking ads

Guys,
Loving my Nord, only had for a few days and not rooted yet, so using Nord VPN to try and block Chrome ads.
However, despite it working flawlessly on other devices, Nord just won't block ads on any site on my OPN.
I'm using the latest apk from Nords website, and got Cybersec enabled. Any ideas??
Nope but in case you want to try something else, I am using dns66 and that works perfectly. I usually root and use adaway. But I wanted to try a non root solution at least untill I decide to root.
Blokada works as well without root
Thanks both.
I usually root and use Adaway too. But I'm a paid Nord VPN subscriber and really would have expected it to work as advertised, but seems to block absolutely nothing just now.
nstirton said:
Thanks both.
I usually root and use Adaway too. But I'm a paid Nord VPN subscriber and really would have expected it to work as advertised, but seems to block absolutely nothing just now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you enabled "private dns" on the phone? It might override the adblocking features of Nord VPN. Usually a lot of adblocking blocks by mapping for instance ads.facebook.com to 127.0.0.1 via DNS. But if you enable private DNS on the phone it's not using Nord VPNs DNS but the private DNS supplier via https.
Thanks for the tip, but no not using a custom DNS.
I guess on other phones I've not relied on the VPNs ad blocking abilities as I've always been rooted using Adaway.
Maybe it's just really bad at blocking ads - ie none at all?!
So, for what it's worth, finally have this fixed....
Whilst I hadn't set up a private / custom DNS, it seems that since I copied over settings from my previous phone (PH-1 R.I.P.) there WAS a redirect in place. I'd only checked DNS within the VPN, not on the phone.
So, VPN active and ads gone!

Ad-block applications

Hi. Which are the most reliable apps for blocking ads both in browsers and regular apps?
There is quite some number of these but I would like to download something that is actually reliable in this field.
I'm using Adguard. It does the job with a few catches though. Some YouTube ads and of course make sure you are restricting access to ebanking and other sensitive apps.
cvkef said:
I'm using Adguard. It does the job with a few catches though. Some YouTube ads and of course make sure you are restricting access to ebanking and other sensitive apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I came across that application, a lot of people use it. I don't have problem with YouTube because I use Vanced. However browser and other apps with ads are really annoying. However if I checked correctly, for blocking ads in other apps (apart from browser) you need to pay for premium account?
Use firefox with ublockorigin or adaway app, or both
I set private DNS - adguard. For now I don't see any commercials, no in applications, neither in browsers.
steffanos said:
I came across that application, a lot of people use it. I don't have problem with YouTube because I use Vanced. However browser and other apps with ads are really annoying. However if I checked correctly, for blocking ads in other apps (apart from browser) you need to pay for premium account?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, if i remember correctly. But I got a lifetime license, it's not that expensive.
AdGuard is worth any penny!
Rooted the phone and using AdAway. By far the best solutions to ad blocking.

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