Advice Request Blocking Facebook video ads on Android

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BoraMurdar

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Does anyone know some custom filter or filterlist that I can import into Adguard for Android and finally block those video ads that comes in the middle of everything I am watching?
I thought that Adguard Premium could block ads system wide, but it seems that video ads remain unblocked in Facebook App.

It would be very helpful.
 

BoraMurdar

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I use AdGuard Premium for Android and don't see any Facebook ads?

EDIT: Oh you mean paid advertising from Pages? I wish there's something to block that too.
I meant while watch some video on facebook. For example, some fail compilations. It's really annoying that in the middle of the hilarious falls from the bycicles, notification appears with "video will continue after an ad"
 

RoboMan

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I meant while watch some video on facebook. For example, some fail compilations. It's really annoying that in the middle of the hilarious falls from the bycicles, notification appears with "video will continue after an ad"
Oh, I actually never saw that on Facebook while using AdGuard. I use HIGH QUALITY filtering, block ads in all apps, and use a total of 20 enabled built in filters. Also I use AdGuard DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS).
 

AriDfoix

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Sep 2, 2018
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Which settings are used for filtering?

Regards. :)

I am sure those ads are encrypted, hence AdGuard certificate will need to be moved into the system partition, something that requires root, I think.

Anyway, I found the app called Friendly be free of that curse. :)

nvm, I think AdGuard cannot handle those kind of ads, there are also other free wrappers for facebook, like Frost or SlimSocial, particulary SlimSocial is less than 1 MB I think, frost is actually well mantained, I think is similar with youtube ads, adguard has a setting for it, but i think is now deprecated, have found myself using newpipe very good.
 
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BoraMurdar

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, I actually never saw that on Facebook while using AdGuard. I use HIGH QUALITY filtering, block ads in all apps, and use a total of 20 enabled built in filters. Also I use AdGuard DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS).
I am using 19 filters. VPN, HTTPS. I will try Adguard DNS to see if it solves anything.

Anyway, I found the app called Friendly be free of that curse. :)
Will try, thank you!
 

AriDfoix

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Rarely a DNS like block can fix those kind of ads, unless is something like: ads.facebook.com, in those cases PiHole or AdGuard Home will fail, AdGuard for Android is able to do a fine granular filtration indeed, but encrypted ads are hard to view, probably we cannot do much, instead we can use a wrapper client to avoid the ads, and see the videos, is similar yo youtube them, for blocking youtube ads on android people found many solutions, but best is workaround them totally using a wrapper.

Friendly is ok I think, for videos I can say no ads I seen in it.

Regards.

I heard also AsGuard team suggesting Friendly.

I mean, sometime is easy we can block much telemetry or adso with subdomains or domains blocking dedicated to telemetry, other times is more comples like with this big companies, them smart, like youtube pushing ads into video from same domains pushing content, that why adguard find problem with youtube, i am sure with facebook is similar. :)
 
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BoraMurdar

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I am not seeing ads on Youtube app, but only on Facebook app. Changing DNS doesn't help either, like @AriDfoix mentioned.

Little sceptical about using Friendly although, but will try anyway...
(Don't like using thirdparty apps for signing into first party app using sensitive credentials)
 

Freki123

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Aug 10, 2013
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Be warned i'm no facebook user. Below are my guesses which settings could help you.
If we are talking about adguard premium:
High quality filtering method: on
Block adds in all apps: on
https filtering: on ****
filter websites with an extended validation certificate: on ****
filtering method: local vpn (remember android only allows the use of one vpn at a time)

Dns filtering on (not sure)

Maybe try if all or a combination of this settings helps.

Some user don't like the **** settings since you have to trust the adguard devs since adguard does something like man-in-the-middle to get the chance to block more adds. For a better explanation look on there website. Not tech savvy enough for better explanation
 

BoraMurdar

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Adguard won't block ads on APPs, unless you use the Premium version.
I know... Mentioned in the first post that it's strange that Premium version cannot filter Facebook app properly. But again, like said above, ads of this kind are coming from the same hosts or servers as legitimate ones, and it's hard for adblockers to filter them.

@Freki123 tried all combination of Adguard settings. Everything is properly blocked. Except those irritating video ads while watching videos.
 

AriDfoix

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Sep 2, 2018
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One thing you could try, is enable the option to log everything, and enable the filter for the app Facebook, now once you get the log, you could try see if you spot something strange inside the domains contacted, I remember to have done something similar for an app that wasn't filtered by filters, even if for Facebook should already take care?

Another thing you could check is see where is it the AdGuard certificate, because sometime it is removed, I use this on my phones and it works fine for me: NVISO-BE/MagiskTrustUserCerts, be sure that the Adguard Personal CA is inside system :)

I remember having a problem with the certificate move during my usage of AdGuard, almost on regular basis, so I find that solution working fine for me.
 
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RoboMan

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@BoraMurdar have you found a fix for this? Having the same problem. Facebook app in Android shows ads in videos and AdGuard can't handle it. Even their support say they can't block those ads in Android app.

lol imagine an ad blocking company not being able to block ads on the two most used Android apps (Facebook and YouTube).

Every day that passes I regret more buying a lifetime license for this crappy app
 

BoraMurdar

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@BoraMurdar have you found a fix for this? Having the same problem. Facebook app in Android shows ads in videos and AdGuard can't handle it. Even their support say they can't block those ads in Android app.

lol imagine an ad blocking company not being able to block ads on the two most used Android apps (Facebook and YouTube).

Every day that passes I regret more buying a lifetime license for this crappy app
No app I tried succeeded in doing that. It seems that ad traffic is encrypted within the app so Adblocker cannot know what it should block.
 

Vitali Ortzi

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No app I tried succeeded in doing that. It seems that ad traffic is encrypted within the app so Adblocker cannot know what it should block.
You have to modify the app itself.
And remove/ patch useless .dex classes.
It's a lot easier since it doesn't have protections like games that force you to take a dumb and fuzz it .
 

Brahman

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Aug 22, 2013
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No app I tried succeeded in doing that. It seems that ad traffic is encrypted within the app so Adblocker cannot know what it should block.
You can use the private dns function in android (version 9 and above) and use nextdns in "custom" settings. This will reduce the overhead of an adblocking app...saves some battery..and some performance. No need to use local vpn to filter ads. If your Android 9 phone does not shows "private dns" setting ( samsung, Xiaomi, oppo, etc) you can install this app
QuickShortcutMaker - Apps on Google Play
and find Settings>"com.android.settings/com.android.settings$networkDashboardActivity"> "TRY"
Select "try" and you will get the option to enable private dns. Once you get the option select custom and provide the nextdns configuration address for dns over TLS as given in your nextdns account.

IMG_20200614_230722.jpg
IMG_20200614_230722.jpg
 

Vitali Ortzi

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Dec 12, 2016
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You can use the private dns function in android (version 9 and above) and use nextdns in "custom" settings. This will reduce the overhead of an adblocking app...saves some battery..and some performance. No need to use local vpn to filter ads. If your Android 9 phone does not shows "private dns" setting ( samsung, Xiaomi, oppo, etc) you can install this app
QuickShortcutMaker - Apps on Google Play
and find Settings>"com.android.settings/com.android.settings$networkDashboardActivity"> "TRY"
Select "try" and you will get the option to enable private dns. Once you get the option select custom and provide the nextdns configuration address for dns over TLS as given in your nextdns account.

View attachment 242721View attachment 242721
I just modify the hosts file itself and merge my lists.
But this is the best and easiest alternative.
 

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