How to block ads on your Android phone

Ads on your Android phone can disrupt your experience, and blocking them will clean up your experience. They might slow your phone down, and some of them could contain malware. They can appear as random popups, notifications, and also while you’re browsing. Some of them randomly start playing audio or video without your permission. This article will explain how you can block ads on your Android phone.

To prevent such problems, we’ll show you how to remove all traces of ads from your Android phone. If you have problems with spam advertisements, you can try the below steps to fix those problems. We’ll first describe how to block ads on Google Chrome.

How to block ads and pop-ups Google Chrome

To prevent annoying ads and pop-ups on your browser, Google Chrome has a first-party blocker. It blocks ads that are very intrusive and misleading. It doesn’t block all the ads on the page, but it significantly cleans it up. To enable the ad-blocker:

1. Open the Google Chrome app on your phone. Make sure you’re on the latest version since older versions might have bugs.
2. Tap on the three dots at the top right. You’ll see several submenus, and you’ll find Settings at the bottom, above Help & Feedback. Tap on Settings.
3. Scroll down till you get to the Content menu. Here, you’ll see various settings like Cookie settings, JavaScript permissions, and more. There’s also a setting for Pop-ups and redirects.
4. Tap on Pop-ups and redirects. It’ll take you to another page with a toggle.
5. You have to disable it and turn it off. Once done, it has to show that Pop-ups and redirects are “Blocked.”
6. Now, go back to Google Chrome settings, and under the Content menu, find the Intrusive Ads menu. Tap on Intrusive ads and turn that off. Sites can no longer show ads that are too annoying.

Google Chrome on Android does not support Extensions. You cannot install a third-party adblocker as a result. However, if you’re willing to swap to another browser, Samsung Internet and Firefox offer support for extensions even on Android. You can just install an adblocker extension that completely blocks all ads while you’re browsing the web. You also have the option of installing browsers such as Brave, which block ads without the need for additional extensions. This will help block some of the ads on your Android phone.

Note: Using adblockers violates the terms of service of many sites since they can’t earn from your visits. They might detect the use of adblockers and stop you from visiting the site, and you might have to end up enabling ads again. We don’t recommend blocking all advertisements since it means a revenue loss, and not all of them are intrusive.

How to turn off notifications from websites on Google Chrome

Notifications via the web are useful for some specific alerts, but some websites abuse this and constantly send spam to your notification center. This is very irksome, and some websites send out notifications about their partner content. If you don’t need notifications from web pages or if you accidentally gave permission before, you can easily turn them off.

1. Long press the Google Chrome app or open app info from the list of apps in your device Settings. You can also long press on Google Chrome from your app menu and tap on the “i” to access the app info.
2. Open the Notifications menu.
3. Scroll and find All Sites Notifications, which is under the Sites menu.
4. Here, you’ll see a list of the sites that are allowed to send notifications. You can also see the number of alerts that each website sends you every week. If the number is too high, you can consider revoking notification permissions.
5. Turn off notification permissions for any unknown web pages from this list. This will block notification-based ads on your Android phone.

How to block ads on your Home Screen

Most Android apps have permission to display content over other apps. This is a permission that app developers typically ask users to grant. Advertisements on your Home Screen are the most annoying, and it takes away from an otherwise clean experience. You can easily get rid of full-screen banner ads and pop-ups on your Home Screen.

This feature is meant for some apps that use Chat Bubbles. Apps like Telegram and Facebook’s Messenger use this feature to display the chat bubbles over other apps. However, developers with malicious intent can easily misuse this feature. They keep sending ads to your home screen. You can still identify which apps are sending these pop-ups and ads and then manually stop them.

1. Find out which app is sending these notifications from your list of apps in Settings. If it’s in the app menu, you can long-press it from there and tap on “i” to get to the app info.
2. Scroll down until you find the Display over other apps option.
3. You’ll find a toggle that says Allow display over other apps. Uncheck it and turn that toggle off.
4. If it’s an app with no particular use or if you suspect malware, completely uninstall the app.

Turn off ads on the Lock Screen

Companies like Samsung and Xiaomi partner up with services like Glance to show ads on your lock screen. Despite attempts to disguise them, they still count as advertisements on the Lock Screen. You can turn wallpaper services off easily.

1. Open the Settings app on your Android phone.
2. Open Lock Screen settings and find the Wallpaper services option.
3. Turn Wallpaper services off.
4. On other phones, use the search bar to search for Wallpaper services or Glance and turn it off

Use a DNS Service to block ads

The AdGuard company gives two DNS addresses that block ads for free. One of them blocks adult content only, and the other blocks ads.

family.adguard-dns.com is the address for blocking adult content.

dns.adguard-dns.com is the address for blocking advertisements in general.

1. Open the Settings app on your phone and find the Connections tab or the Network settings. This will depend on your model.
2. Tap on More Connection Settings.
3. If these options aren’t available in your app, go to the main Settings page and type “Private DNS” in the Search Bar.
4. Now, open Private DNS options.
5. Now, choose the Private DNS provider hostname option and then type which service you want to use. The two servers are mentioned above: the one to block adult content and the one to block ads.
6. Tap on save and confirm; this will activate AdGuard.

Note: Some websites might load slower, and removing ads will mean that you have to scroll through a lot of empty space on websites where the ad would’ve usually been. Some webpages might not even load if you use a DNS adblocker.

Miscellaneous

1. Buy Premium subscriptions to apps like YouTube to eliminate ads from there completely. You get monthly and yearly subscriptions.
2. Avoid installing malware and double-check the authenticity before you sideload an app.
3. Power users can choose to root their phones and block ads on your Android phone system-wide. However, this is not everyone’s cup of tea and isn’t exactly safe.