and be sure to keep your bootloader unlocked

you can also not root your phone that's an option

i'll die before i let myself see an advertisement

visit just_post NOW for a completely ad-free experience!

do you have to root your phone on android to get an ad blocker? that sucks a lot, I've used a blocker on ios for years.

i always thought that you had to jailbreak iphone to get to the hosts file? this is a firm blow to my android superiority complex

i shall start advertising

You definitely need to jailbreak an iphone to get the hosts file. What ios offers is safari content blocking which allows apps to provide a list to safari of things to block. I use 1Blocker. You can use whatever app you want to manage lists but the actual blocking mechanism is always the same and always really fast.

I haven't set it up yet but I'm really interested in using a Pi-hole to block ads at the network level instead of on a device.

Oh wow so this is like, legit ad blocking? And it's easy to set up?

I only ever get ads on YouTube or rare apps with hard-coded ads (like those little icons that were embedded on the bottom of old forums).

Pi-hole? Yea it's as easy as it could possibly be, though like youtube is really good at getting around adblockers and does give Pi-hole trouble. It'd be cool for stuff like smart TVs and news apps. I'm not sure if it's really practical for most people but I like its philosophy a lot.

I still need to figure out how to do it for the first time

Ah I meant the ad-blocking stuff. I was asking, is it easy and accessible for folks who don't know much about computers? Because if so, that's a big advantage over rooting (and over pi-hole).

Oh yea safari content blockers rule, it's just download an app and flip some switches in the settings. Easy to turn off too if something breaks, just hold down the refresh button.