Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mrep 2949 days ago
Mobile apps and some mobile browsers don't support ad block.

While I have ublock on my laptop, i still get ads when I am on my phone which ironically is where these companies get most of their revenue these days.

4 comments

If you have a Raspberry Pi, look into using Pi-hole[1]. It provides network-wide blocking when installed on your home network by proxying requests. I also use AdGuard Pro[2], which provides a similar function when I'm outside my home network. Both happen to be open source software[3][4], so that's a plus.

[1]: https://pi-hole.net/

[2]: https://adguard.com/en/adguard-ios-pro/overview.html

[3]: https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole

[4]: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardForiOS

Still doesn't block ads from the Facebook mobile app.

Even if you install a root cert to MITM, some apps pin certs.

Of course, there are ways around this: you could make a copy of Facebook that doesn’t pin certificates.
True. Not for iOS though, atleast without a jailbreak.
> Not for iOS though, atleast without a jailbreak.

If you have persistence, no jailbreak is needed. Would require you to binary patch the executable then resign the binary using your own Apple Dev account. Far from trivial, but still doable and without Jailbreaking.

And jailbreaks are getting harder and harder to find by each iOS update.
FF on mobile supports ublock. Not going to help in apps, but you can have everything open into FF.
if you have android you can get Netguard from github [0]. Its from the Xprivacy dev; functions as a firewall (VPN), w/o root. The github version supports ability to load Hosts file that can block domains (ads) - like the hosts files used by Ublock. This generally blocks ads across the OS. iOs should have something similar.

https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases

I just tried that and reddit/facebook/chrome still showed adds.
The goal of NetGuard is to function as a Firewall to limit apps ability to phone home without consent. The host file feature will block most in-app advertising and provide some protection for web browsing. Ads within facebook can be blocked using custom host filed within Ublock/Umatrix. I dont know about ad-blocking within the FB app itself.

Generally, you should be using Firefox, not Chrome, with Ublock and/or Umatrix installed to maintain control of your web experience. FB web interface can be used and ads generally blocked. Reddit's native ads are served directly via first party URLs so it is tuff to block. Reddit's made changes for the advertisers and their new UI is meant to popularize Native ads.

Blockada can block ads in other mobile apps on a non-rooted Android phone.