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Although I don’t block ads on my PC (for the most part… I only block ads on web services I pay a subscription fee for), I find ads on my cell phone to be extremely annoying; the screen is small as it is… ads just throw salt into the wound. Of course, I know ads are used to support free apps – I am not denying this fact. However, if I want to support a developer I will purchase his/her paid app rather than have ads on my tini-tiny screen, which I only click on by accident (ugh!). So, I use an app that allows me to block ads on my Android phone and figure other Android users may be interested in using it also.
AdFree Android is a free app that blocks ads on Android phones by “nullifying requests to known hostnames serving ads”. AdFree Android blocks ads in apps and the Internet browser. (Note: If you use something like Opera Turbo in Opera Mini, AdFree Android will not be able to block ads because Opera Mini serves cached pages to you.) AdFree Android uses MVPS HOSTS file as the ad filter to determine which hostnames to block.
Installing and using AdFree Android is very easy. After installing AdFree Android, you simply need to
- Give AdFree Android superuser permissions (yes, root is required):
- Download and install the the HOSTS file/ad filter:
- Done!
Since AdFree Android downloads and places the HOSTS file in your phone’s /system/etc folder, AdFree Android is a one-time thing – it does not stay on in the background. The only time you have to interact with AdFree Android again – after the initial setup – is when you want to update the HOSTS file. In that regard, you have the option to setting AdFree Android to automatically update the HOSTS file on a daily basis:
The downside to this add-HOSTS-file-to-system-folder approach to blocking ads is users are not given the ability to exclude specific apps and websites from ad blocking (i.e. free apps that you want to support by clicking on their ads). But, hey, no program is perfect right?
To grab AdFree Android, search the Android Marketplace for “AdFree Android”, use your bar code scanner on the QR code (found below), or load up this page on your Android phone and click on the following link:
Version reviewed: v.0.4.10
Price: Free
