Guide to ad-blocking
HOW TO ELIMINATE ADS ON MOBILES.
IN A WORLD of free stuff, ads are kind of the cost of doing business. We expect ads in the free websites we visit and in the free apps we download for our mobiles. But there are limits to our forebearance, and if you find that you’ve reached yours, this column is for you. This month we’re covering ad filtering on mobiles.
BROWSER VS SYSTEM AD FILTERING
To start with, what we wanted to focus on here is system-wide ad filtering. Browserbased ad filtering is widely available on both iOS and Android. You can download browsers with built-in ad filters from Google Play and the iTunes App Store (we recommend Opera); you can also download ad-filtering add-ons for many browsers.
But what we wanted was something that would also halt ads in mobile apps as well, most especially obnoxious video streaming ads that have no respect for the bandwidth limitations on mobile networks. That is a little more complicated to set up, and will usually require a little more effort than just downloading an app.
APPLE IOS
There was a time when iOS was the easiest platform on which to get an ad blocker. Ad blockers like AdGuard and 1Blocker were readily available in the iTunes Store, and all you really had to do was download and run them.
Recently however, Apple has cracked down on system-wide ad blockers on the iTunes Store. It’s still fine with ad blockers for web browsers — it even supplies developers with an accessible API to do just that — but it no longer allows tools that are designed to block in-app advertising as well. Those tools, like AdGuard and 1Blocker, have been effectively nerfed. (The cynical might come to the conclusion that that’s because Apple makes money from in-app ads, but not from web advertising).
That means you have to get a little tricky. The best solution we have right now, short of rooting the phone, is to use an ad-blocking VPN. An ad-blocking VPN services like NordVPN, Windscribe or Perfect Privacy works just as well for mobiles as desktops, and will work equally on in-app ads and web ads. These block the ads at the network level, either by filtering specific data sources or modifying their DNS records (see DNS-based blocking) to prevent access to known ad servers.
To use an ad-blocking VPN, all you need to do is connect to it normally using the app supplied by the VPN provider. Depending on the provider, you may have to switch on ad blocking, but once you do, ads should be halted from ever reaching your mobile so long as you remain connected to the VPN. In general, there’s no harm in staying connected to the VPN — it might have some impact on performance (depending on your provider), but it will save you a considerable amount of ad data.
The kicker, of course, is that most such VPN services are not free. Free VPN services are often themselves supported by ads, which defeats the purpose of using them to block ads. That said, you should have a VPN service in any case — so why not get one with ad blocking?
ANDROID
If you want to block ads on Android, we’d recommend using Block This!
Block This! is not our favourite ad blocking app on Android — that would be AdGuard — but it is our favourite free solution. It requires no root or funky proxy configurations and it functions for ads in apps as well as browsers.
You can’t get it on the Google Play Store. Given that Google gets most of its money from ads, it’s no surprise that it very swiftly kills any ad blockers that might make their way to the Store. That
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD BROWSERS WITH BUILT IN AD FILTERS FROM GOOGLE PLAY AND THE ITUNES APP STORE (WE RECOMMEND OPERA); YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD ADFILTERING ADD-ONS FOR MANY BROWSERS.
means you have to load Block This! from its website and not from Google Play.
To do that, the first thing you’ll have to do is disable the restrictions on installing non-Google Play apps. Head to your mobile settings, and find Biometrics and Security, then the section on Installing unknown apps.
Depending on your version of Android, this might be a simple on-off switch (in which case turn it to on), or it may take you to another page where you can select applications you can use to install third party apps (yes, we know this is a little confusing). Just find your chosen browser — Chrome, for example — and change its setting to Allowed.
Now in that aforementioned browser, head to block-this.com. Click on the download button to download the APK file, then run it. You’ll get the requisite warnings about this being an untrusted app because it’s not from the Google Play Store — you can tap through them.
Once you’ve done that, Block This! should be installed on your mobile. Open it up, and tap on the play button to turn it on.
The app works very much like AdGuard. It creates a fake local VPN that your internet data is filtered through. You’ll be notified that a VPN has been created on your mobile when you press the play button and the VPN will be active for as long as Block This! is running. Creating this fake VPN allows Block This! to control DNS requests from your mobile and thereby filter advertising websites. It’s far from 100% foolproof, but it will block a lot of in-app ads as well as ads from websites. Hopefully, it will do a good job for you of killing annoying, bandwidth-sucking animated ads — and you’ll suddenly find your monthy mobile data use going down a lot further.