alt Hacker NewsHow I block all online ads
Comments
I am so reliant on YouTube Premium that I forget people even see ads on there. I watch an awful lot of long form interviews, lectures, podcasts -- most downloaded for offline. It's the easiest $8/month of all my subscriptions.
My additional recommendations:
1. You don't need a separate browser extension for blocking cookie notices, Ublock Origin can do that just fine. You just need to enable the cookie notice filters in the settings (they are disabled by default).
2. AdAway on Android allows network-level blocking without resorting to a VPN (it's based on /etc/hosts). Though it does require root.
Is running Pihole or Adguard home even worth it these days ?
You can get something like NextDNS for $18/year, which is probably less than what you pay for the power required to serve Pihole or Adguard Home, and you get enterprise level infrastructure for it, along with redundancy, and it works "everywhere".
Yes, you (probably) need a caching resolver at home, and that could be Pihole or Adguard, but going through hoops to setup Wireguard and have all DNS resolve over that, just to reach pihole at home, that sounds like overkill.
Anyway, In case it's not obvious, NextDNS is how i roll, using a "stupid" caching DNS resolver at home.
I'm using Firefox + uBlock Origin, and this combo blocks ads perfectly for me. Anyone else using the same setup?
I prefer poisoning my ad profile instead of passively blocking with Ad Nauseum https://adnauseam.io/ . It uses Ublock origin under the hood. I've got my click rate set to high but not 100%.
Firefox + uBlock origin and i'm blessed with peaceful browsing experience.
I have an Apple TV and I’ve been running iSponsorBlockTV [1] on my Synology box for a while. It auto-skips the sponsored segments and with Youtube premium, it gives me a clean, ad-free setup.
I can’t stand those in-video intros or sponsored promos, where I’m suddenly pitched a random VPN or productivity app.
There's nothing too unexpected in this post. Firefox + uBlock is pretty much standard now. It's been impossible to recommend Chrome ever since Google moved to manifest v3, which can only be described as deliberate anti-privacy enshittification. The recaptcha solver is starting to become niche, since cloudflare has really taken over (for better or worse).
I would add one more useful tool though: A user-agent switcher[1]. There are still some websites that insist you must use Chrome (or sometimes Edge). They will block you if you try to use them with Firefox, even though they work perfectly well and sometimes even better on Firefox than they do on Chrome. A user-agent switcher gives you the option to simply uninstall Chrome for good.
e.g. My ISP provides a website for streaming live TV (e.g. sports) that claims to be incompatible with Firefox, but actually runs better (i.e. fewer glitches) on it than it does on Chrome. However, it refuses to load on Firefox unless you use a user-agent switcher.
Why do people write websites that refuse to run based on user-agent checks? By all means, warn users that you couldn't be arsed to test things on more than one browser, but why go that extra mile to brick your site when other browsers probably support it quite well?
[1]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/user-agent-st...
Brave + NextDNS/ControlD is what I've found the be the ultimate ad blocking combo for the entire household(TVs, phones, computers), when balancing cost/effort.
PiHole is popular but IMO not worth the effort when the above are so cheap. There are free ad blocking DNS servers, but they aren't customizable.
It's not bad advice, but the AI-slimeyness of the article turns me away.
NewPipe or Invidious
I've bee trying these and alternatives in FF via LibRedirect for years. I keep on wondering if it's just me but I have to babysit the setup and cycle through instances every so often.
I don't use adblock, I just close a website if its ads interrupt my browsing experience.
My free and 5 minute setup: I am using Brave + uBlockOrigin Lite + AdGuard + AdGuard DNS on my home network. On android Brave + AdGuard DNS. No configuration just works, no annoyances. On youtube as well. Is there anything I should further do? I think I sometimes see ads in android apps maybe this can be optimized without root somehow?
My Personal Ad/Block Management Strategy
Here is the block management setup I personally use regularly:
Desktop
* DNS blocking is active via NextDNS.
* I use Ungoogled Chromium as my primary browser.
* I use the uBlock ad-blocking extension along with its filters.
* The SponsorBlock extension is very useful for skipping sponsored segments within YouTube videos.
Mobile
* DNS blocking is active via NextDNS.
* To block ads in Safari, I activate ad-blocking in Safari through the free Firefox Focus app.
* I use the YouTube app via AltStore. It is a nice feature that it also includes the SponsorBlock extension.
If you'd like, I can publish a comprehensive ad-blocking guide on the Ahmet Çadırcı https://ahmetcadirci.com/ page.
HN title optimizer has once again stripped the “How” from the beginning of the title.
Did same thing, not everything works, but there are (almost) no ads for me. I would add Smarttube with Sponsorblock extension for android TV to the list. They had hickup recently with melitious hack and malware in their code but now seems to recovered. And for all ads-trolls: "Oh, you are stealing income from creators." If I consider their work worth it I pay them (semi)directly.
This seems like a lot of work. I just point my router at AdGuard DNS and that takes care of all ads on every device on my network. No filter lists, nothing to host, completely free.
Only caveat is it doesn’t block ads served by the content provider itself e.g. some streaming services, but from what I hear those are difficult to block with any approach.
Blocking isn't the issue, it's the websites that straight up break that are the hard part.
For example, Shopify hates ublock and will sometimes not load apps at all
> Ads support content creators and free services. If you value specific creators or platforms, consider supporting them directly through memberships or donations rather than relying solely on ad blocking.
Sometimes this isn’t available.
I would like to support Daring Fireball (a publication I read a lot) but the only way is to buy an ad slot for $11K which seems like a scam to both the viewer and the advertiser.
The advertiser isn’t getting any ROAS (since we are blocking the ads) and since the ads are annoying and repetitive, the viewers would just go elsewhere.
I wish more creators would have a “remove ads” tier or an alternative membership tier as a different way to support their content rather than ads.
Brave+ControlD, for me. I'm not interested in YouTube, so don't care about that part.
semi-related: after installing pi-hole and using it on my wifi, Netflix on the TV stopped working, ads on (some, big) polish websites were still present. Uninstalled 10 minutes later. Had similar experience last time I tried (years ago) - pihole gave me problems using work-related pages or whatnot. Is there nothing better? E.g. ublock origin but for dns?
Anyone have a method for blocking ads in RSS?
I regularly read https://daringfireball.com and sick of their ads showing up in my RSS feed.
It is bad enough and distracting that ads show up on the site (thankfully Firefox and ublock origin does the job already) but on RSS blocking ads is impossible.
basically, ublock origin on PC, tends to work well, I don't really see ads except for when the content creator plugs a product directly in their content.
I actually wonder if the whole anti-ad movement is moving in the wrong direction. And I’m right there with the author running a pi-hole, but I wonder if it would be better to have an extension that will click all of the ads in a way that is invisible to the user. Make all those companies burn thru their budgets for no gain.
Whoa, if you use a VPN eventually instagram will stop showing you ads?!?! Is that really true? Has anyone else found this?
Also make sure to block ads on your mobile as well https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/predator-spyw...
To block adds in android apps, there is DNS66 available on f-droid. https://f-droid.org/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/
NextDNS is sufficient on its own. $20 for a year of no ads (or smut if you want to block that too).
AI content is become as insidious as ads were. Is there software to block AI content?
Note that using Helium, you can use a Chromium based browser and still enjoy uBlock Origin properly.
TIL. Need to figure out how to redirect insta over a vpn then
On Safari I use Wipr and Sponsorblock. Afterwards I use web version of everything instead of apps, including youtube.
AdGuard Extra (beta) browser extension blocks twitch adds very reliable.
For the iOS folks, is the Mullvad DNS config better or worse than the Ublock Origin Safari Extension? The former seems a bit more invasive
Some applications tunnel in their ads over non-ad domains, making them unlockable.
For example IMDb. And proxying over mitmproxy actually breaks the whole app, because they do certificate pinning.
I use uBlock on desktop and laptop with Dan host files. AdGuard DNS on Android, or Firefox Mobile with uBlock extension. Even Edge on mobile has extension support now.
For Twitch on Android I am using Twire, it works great mainly for replays
The VPN trick doesnt work for YouTube on mobile anymore. I get popups saying I need to log-in or disable my VPN to watch videos. I could probably buy a silly gmail account online and link it to my YouTube app, but am afraid it will log-in my whole phone to this shady Google account.
Anyone use SmartTube? Or is it something I should remove?
DNS-based ad blocking works great if everyone is okay with the degraded experience that can come with that (if you're using aggressive hosts lists). You're making concessions if not.
The VPN-based "solution" is basically as realistic as disabling JavaScript. Extremely limiting.
1Blocker on iOS and macOS has been good. It also blocks in-app trackers.
Desktop and mobile: Firefox and uBlock Origin.
Mobile: Blockada to prevent apps from reaching their ad servers. NewPipe.
Desktop: Freetube.
uBO has the bonus to have an element picker that I use to remove the empty areas where ads would show. I do it for sites that I use often. I also remove some useless menus and headers. I particularly hate sticky ones.
> but I've heard good things about NextDNS
I have used them both paid and free and they are not good. I will pick just one point - support. It's pathetic. Maybe because it's non existent. I stopped paying for it, started using free, then removed it altogether.
uBlock Origin really is that good as others are saying. I haven't really needed anything else. Ads in other apps? Well, that's a hit or miss but then a lot of my finance/investment related apps anyway don't work if I use any ad blocking on local network or device label, sadly. Tweaking around it is how I needed support with NextDNS and then realised I've been paying for something with essentially no support.
One should not neglect the power of the /etc/hosts file. I use one from https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/. I don’t bother with browser extensions; I never see ads.
Brave browser helps a lot. I can't use some browsers due to the ad clutter. Some can handle the ads, some can't.
realistically though, most YouTube content is an ad for something ;)
librewolf with ublock
firefox sold out on their users quit using them https://youtube.com/shorts/FObvkFtr2ZU
Anyone have a way of blocking twitter adds?
I’ve just been watching streams after they’re done so that I can get rid of them that way
Edit: nvm author mentions vpns as a solution
There is nothing special about the Troubled Engineer's setup. It's mostly a matter of using open platforms. With Firefox on the desktop and Fennec on Android (Graphene), you get full uBlock Origin support and therefore never see any ads anywhere, even on Youtube. On Android, there is also NewPipe that offers "free Youtube Premium" (play in the background and download).
I also use DNS based filtering since I run my own Unbound instance, but it isn't really necessary with the above setup. It may be useful if you must absolutely have a smart TV or other such appliances, but considering that they have cameras and microphones, I will never connect such a device to the Internet anyway.