An ad can be infuriating and a nuisance. Particularly in phones where adware is part of the OEM package. You can counter this without any third-party apps or other requirements fairly easily, and all you need is to access your network settings on your phone. A handy adblocker that doesn’t need any permissions or access to your phone, and works in a majority of places.
Android has a built-in AdBlocker you should be using!
If you are looking for a way to get rid of the ads without downloading an adblocker from the Google Play Store and paying for access, here’s a method you can try.
A lot of Android phones come with ad trackers embedded within the phone to track your app usage and share this data with Google. This data in turn is used to serve you ads for games you play, websites you browse, and other places where you use your phone or related apps. We will cover how to get rid of this ‘feature’ in a future guide, but if you want a free way to block ads on your phone, this neat little trick is all you need.
It helps remove ads from the web browser and a few games, but your luck will vary from one device to the next, it is worth mentioning that the feature has been found in devices until Android 10, so you will have to hope that this feature is present in your phone.
To start, open your Settings and navigate to Network & Internet or whatever it is called for you on your phone.
Open Network & Internet and you will look for Private DNS. With some OEMs, this is in the very first section, but in other OEMs, you will have to find it within another hidden setting.
Once you have located Private DNS, select Private DNS Provider hostname, and enter the following address: dns.adguard.com
Once you are done, tap on Save. The end result will look like this:
Now keep in mind, that this isn’t going to work for any and every service. I managed to block ads for some of the free-to-download games, and it worked great with blocking a majority of ads on Google Chrome, if not all. However, this does not mean it will block ads completely. I still get ads on my phone before YouTube videos, so this is something you should know.
However, the alternative is a roll of the dice, as a lot of other adblockers introduce ads as well, and only the premium solutions are able to give you a real adblocker experience.
