What free ad blockers work best on Fairphone without affecting battery life or app compatibility?

Discuss The Industry
1

What ad blockers work best on Fairphone without affecting battery life or app compatibility?
I’m especially interested in options that respect privacy while keeping system performance and battery usage low.

2

I don’t use system wide, but in the browser. I use Firefox that allows to install webapps for things like reddit, Instagram, letterboxd, etc. I believe that removing as many apps as possible and using the web versions improves the privacy as you can control with extensions what the sites do.
Where are you suffering from ads?

3

I’m quite confident with this ad blocker:

As my phone is rooted, I’m using the app like this. But without root you can use the AdAway VPN based.

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4

I’m using personalDNSfilter from f-droid. Works system wide (DNS via VPN).

Very flexible. Also using it for redirecting the captive portal check from Google to kuketz

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5

For a few weeks now, I am using dnsforge.de DNS-Resolver. Just a DNS with integrated block lists, nothing to install or configure. Works well for me, I only had problems once getting the login-page of a public WiFi. But one cannot configure the filter lists.

Used that one before, without root and VPN-based, but it stopped every now and then, had to restart it, was too annoying. I guess it was related to the issue with apps getting closed in background, not an issue of the app itself.

I will try this one I think! The UI is not really intuitive if you want to change anything :smiley: But I guess I’ll manage to figure it out. Might have the same issues with getting killed sometimes on the Fairphone though, then I will go back to dnsforge.de

6

True, but the help pages are not that bad, I think :wink:

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I’m also using this with root. (This and backup are the main reason I rooted my devices)

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9

I just use a Base DNS config maintained by Mullvad: DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS

NextDNS is another good option that lets you add exceptions and custom domains to block: https://nextdns.io/

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10

I’m using RethinkDNS. DNS + Firewall App for Android 6+ | Rethink

Quite advanced, as I’m controlling every app’s domain connection in addition to the ones being blocked by the blocklists.

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11

I’ve been using it for 10 days now, so far no problems, no system kills. Thanks for the hint! :slight_smile:

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12

Do you know DuckDuckGo?

Besides search I use their borwser app, which blocks web tracking, plus if you eable it, will block app tracking via VPN on your phone.

I like it, it blocked ~67000 app requests the past week. You may be surprised how hard a gym, weather or news app would want to track you. :smiley:

I do get some ads but they are never personalized.

Oh and it’s possible to use their browser with google, etc as default search. But since you care about privacy, you could (and should) try DDG search :wink:

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13

I am also using it after reading the posts by Kuketz :wink: I combine it with Netguard to limit network access to certain apps before filtering.

Edit: At home I use pi-hole, BTW

14

I have been satisfied with Adguard’s private DNS for years. It works system-wide when you enter it as the private-DNS server on your smartphone. Of course, you can also store the servers in your home router. Then everything in the network is protected.

dns . adguard-dns . com (without spaces!)

And NO, it’s not necessary to install the Adguard App!