Annoyed by the pesky little banners showing up on your phone again and again? We all are. While digital media marketing and advertising might be great if appropriately served, ads in android are getting a bit out of hand lately.

Nobody wants random banners popping up on their phone screen. If you want to get rid of them, you’re in the right place. In this article, we go over eight ways you can block ads on Android.

Using Ad blocking Apps

Yep, as simple as installing another app on your phone. Ad-block apps are the go-to method to block ads on your Android. The problem is, some of these apps aren’t available on the Play Store and require your phone to be rooted.

There are some apps on the Play Store itself that don’t need root your phone, and while they are effective solutions, they might not be as effective.

Ad blocking apps have been around forever, and they keep on getting better. Here are the top 5 ad blocking apps for you.

Also read: What is cryptojacking? How to detect and prevent it

AdAway

AdAway is a great ad-blocking app that has been around for quite some time now.

All you need to do is download the APK, install it on your phone (make sure you’ve allowed installation from unknown sources), open it and tap on the ‘Download files and Block Ads’ button and restart your phone.

Voila! No more annoying ads now. Just make sure your device is rooted first.

AdBlock Plus

AdBlock Plus is another great ad-blocking app. Works exactly like AdAway, download the APK, install, set-up the right options, and after restarting your phone, you’re good to go.

There’s also a browser extension to the AdBlock Plus app that can block ads in your browser as well.

You can find AdBlock Plus here

AdBlock Browser for Android

For blocking ads while browsing, this is probably the best bet. It has great reviews on the Play Store and effectively blocks ads on almost all websites.

The procedure is simple too. Just install the app and get going.

You can find AdBlock Browser for Android here

DNS66

This app will block all ads on your non-rooted phone without causing excess battery drain.

The way that DNS66 works is unlike other apps, it works at the DNS level. This means that it only filters traffic for a brief moment when connections are first made.

The app has a similar installation procedure to AdAway. It’s completely free and open-source and is hosted on the F-Droid repository.

You can find DNS66 here.

Adguard

AdGuard is a cross-platform ad blocking software. You can try it out on your PC and phone alike.

In addition to ad blocking, AdGuard also offers other features such as Privacy Protection, Parental Control and Malware blocking.

However, all this fancy comes at a price. You’ll have to pay about $19 a month if you’re planning to get AdGuard on your Android. The price goes higher if you include your PC/Mac/iPhone.

You can find AdGuard here.

Now if you don’t want to root your phone or are not confident enough with an app, here are some other ways you can block ads on your phone.

Blocking pop-up pages and ads in Chrome

You’re probably aware of this one. Early 2018 Google announced that Chrome will now be able to block all ads on a website. Sites will also see their ads blocked if they unexpectedly play a sound or play a flashy animation.

For those websites that still use pop-up ads, there’s an inbuilt pop-up blocker too. Just go to Settings then either Ads or Pop-up and set the slider to block the ads.

Using Data Saver Mode on Chrome

Yep, you read that right. This is a relatively lesser known technique to block ads on Chrome.

To enable it, go to the main menu, tap on Settings, then scroll down to Data Saver, and then turn it on. When the Data Saver is on, Chrome keeps background downloads (which can include ads) down and focuses solely on loading the requested webpage.

Data Saver uses Google’s compression servers to detect and get rid of web pages that contain harmful or malicious ads.

Disallowing an app to display over other apps

The most notable example of this is the Facebook messenger. The way you get that neat little bubble is a messenger displaying itself over other apps. This strategy is used by other apps to display ads on your phone. That’s why it’s suggested to be careful with app permissions.

To do this, go to Settings -> Apps and Notifications -> Special App access -> Display over other apps. From here you can turn off any apps that were causing you those annoying distractions.

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