Hey everyone, I'm still pretty new to using my GrapheneOS phone and have been slowly transitioning to a more privacy oriented technology lineup than I previously did.
I searched for clients on Google and found "Total Adblock", "Adblock", and "Adblock Plus" but I'm not quite sure how to audit an adblocker for security flaws or malicious intent. I also would prefer to install apps through the F-Droid store and learn how to compile from source code on mobile (if that's possible on GrapheneOS or if that's even something desirable)
Thanks for any help! Been lurking a lot on Lemmy and have really enjoyed the energy in the community. Definitely has made learning Linux and the countless times I've had to fix my Arch system much more enjoyable. GrapheneOS has been quite stable too other than the phone having interfacing problems with my cellular provider's network...
If I were you I would set your phone's DNS to dns.adguard.com.
You may want to double check that by searching it but adguard has a DNS server that will block the majority of ads from ever hitting your phone regardless of where you are, kind of like having a pi hole on your phone.
I have a question. If I set my Phone's DNS to that address, will it affect my internet speeds in any way? Slowing it or boosting it? I already have sucky internet and don't want my speed to be slower due to that private DNS.
No, it's not a VPN. Your traffic does not go through it. All using it does is change which server that your device asks for IP addresses for the websites you visit. When your device asks for the IP for an ad, Adguard gives you one that points back to your device and prevents the ad from being loaded. Otherwise it acts like any other DNS-Over-HTTPS server.
I'm not 100% certain. I think the difference is the adguard app also adds in some in system protections in exchange for battery life because it's always running. I didn't much care for the app but the DNS service has been perfectly fine for my casual use.
As others have said, DNS blocks are good. My favorite is https://rethinkdns.com/ which you can use by itself, or with their app. Using the app gives you many more options, and nice features like logging.
Custom Nextdns. For the Browser, Mull with Ublock. Vanadium sucks, it may be good for security but has no privacy features whatsoever. What website works without Javascript? Bullshit. Noscript on Firefox is so much better.
As far as I remember adaway is the og adblock for android, it is available on f-droid and pretty much the only app that I used since ever, and one of the few reasons I still won't let go of rooted phones, https://adaway.org/
On top of that I would recommend you to run your own DNS server with unbound, add to that pi-hole and wireguard and you have your own pi-hole set-up on any device you want.: https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/vpn/wireguard/overview/
For the browser, use Firefox (Fennec or Mull in F-Droid) with Ublock Origin. For anything else, honestly if the app has ads you should avoid using it anyway.
Any advice on adjusting to a search engine like Searx or enhancing how to use DuckDuckGo since Fennec comes with it?
Is there a gospel-like resource on Search Engines and using particular query delimiters? Just been tough reading some of these documentation pages with legion jargon words
Incorporating it into your DNS as bizarroland@kbin.social said is a great option. The Mull browser from F-Droid allows uBlock as an add-on but is just browser specific. Setting up both would be a fantastic approach for overall mobile privacy.
Adguard DNS is nice but sometimes you need to let some app pass. I've switched to blokada. Sadly they've pulled the app from f-droid but version 5 is available on github
I have tried Blokada and RethinkDNS already (I guess DNS66 is no longer maintained - I may be wrong) but finally zeroed in on PersonalDNSFilter.
I don't see it being mentioned much - but IMHO it is much more lightweight and customizable than the other two.
I point to Cloudflare DoT for DNS, and use the OISD blocklist, and that's all I need for device-level blocking ( I already use Firefox + uBO in my Android device so I'm good on that front).
Blokada works fine, but download the .apk from its Homepage, the version in the Play Store is a, by Google, "decaffeinated" light version. Google hate adblockers.
I like Netguard, enable settings, advanced, manage system apps, filtering and blocking hosts.
Go to settings backup - put a hosts url (say from: GitHub - StevenBlack/hosts: 🔒 Consolidating and extending hosts files from several well-curated sources. Optionally pick extensions for porn, social media, and other categories. 66 ) and press to download it.
Extra fun, block internet access to apps you don’t want to :wink:
Wow, not sure how I missed this in the GrapheneOS FAQ which I’ve read parts of already recently. Thank you so much. Based on the information there, I came to the decision to configure AdGuard’s DNS-over-TLS server in the Private DNS option within GrapheneOS. Ad blocking seems to be working so far.
Quad9’s DNS-over-TLS server also looks interesting, but it seems more focused on general malware rather than ad blocking.
Is there a reason nobody recommends dns66 of fdroid? I uses adaway for many years with root. But the rootfree version never really worked for me. Dns66 replaced it.