Question Block CNN.com and CNN mobile iOS app video ads

[pcslookout]

Is this possible? If so how on iOS please?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Maybe if you get some corporate level Mobile Device Manager (MDM) it will cost you but I’m sure it’s possible.
Gotta ask why do you want to block them?

 

[BoomerD]

Maybe if you get some corporate level Mobile Device Manager (MDM) it will cost you but I’m sure it’s possible.
Gotta ask why do you want to block them?

Afraid he'll see some librul fake news?

 

[Shmee]

If you are talking about ads in your mobile browser, you could install Firefox, as I assume there is a version for iOS, and install an adblocker. I recommend ublock origin. There should be options on which ads to block, or you could block them all!

 

[Zor Prime]

You can do this at a DNS level, you could setup an Adguard Home or PiHole DNS server.

 

[A///]

You can do this at a DNS level, you could setup an Adguard Home or PiHole DNS server.

Blokada, too, but it's a paid service ever since their update a couple years ago. Are either of your suggestions easy to set up?

 

[Zor Prime]

Blokada, too, but it's a paid service ever since their update a couple years ago. Are either of your suggestions easy to set up?

Not too sure about PiHole but I run Adguard Home. I rent a cheap Debian VPS (look for deals on LowEndBox dot com) for a year at a time and set it up on there. Can work for your mobile phone, too, if you set it up to target the domain where you have your Adguard Home server when selecting Private DNS (Android, anyway.) I'm definitely not a *nix pro and managed to sort it out. I really have nothing but good things to say about Adguard Home. It's been fun. And very beneficial.

You can setup manual blocks or get some from established curated lists right from within Adguard Home itself, or go scour the Internet for even more lists.

One of my favorite things is seeing something that gets by one of the lists I use and going and manually adding it myself. lol

If you get really list-heavy you will ultimately have to go try to access the site / whatever and hit refresh on the query log and permit something through. But it doesn't take long once you get the hang of diagnosing an issue, like, someone in the house suddenly cannot access Hulu videos -- or whatever. Tell them to try it again while you sit there and hit refresh on the query log and you'll find what's getting blocked that's probably the issue, etc.

These are my stats for the past 30 days: 1,586,290 permitted DNS queries, and 617,555 that got blocked which ultimately saved me some transfer quota and reduced CPU utilization. Not to mention, one less jackass out there turning around and selling my information. There's a ton of garbage out there every minute of every day.

 

[A///]

Not too sure about PiHole but I run Adguard Home. I rent a cheap Debian VPS (look for deals on LowEndBox dot com) for a year at a time and set it up on there. Can work for your mobile phone, too, if you set it up to target the domain where you have your Adguard Home server when selecting Private DNS (Android, anyway.) I'm definitely not a *nix pro and managed to sort it out. I really have nothing but good things to say about Adguard Home. It's been fun. And very beneficial.

You can setup manual blocks or get some from established curated lists right from within Adguard Home itself, or go scour the Internet for even more lists.

One of my favorite things is seeing something that gets by one of the lists I use and going and manually adding it myself. lol

If you get really list-heavy you will ultimately have to go try to access the site / whatever and hit refresh on the query log and permit something through. But it doesn't take long once you get the hang of diagnosing an issue, like, someone in the house suddenly cannot access Hulu videos -- or whatever. Tell them to try it again while you sit there and hit refresh on the query log and you'll find what's getting blocked that's probably the issue, etc.

These are my stats for the past 30 days: 1,586,290 permitted DNS queries, and 617,555 that got blocked which ultimately saved me some transfer quota and reduced CPU utilization. Not to mention, one less jackass out there turning around and selling my information. There's a ton of garbage out there every minute of every day.

does this apply to android only? I'm on an iphone which imo is better. thanks for the info, I'll have to look into it further, this is the 2nd time I've seen this combination mentioned. I'll have to check in with some ios sites because i know other services exist other than blokada premium. I didn't even know you could block ads on android. I used an android phone for a short time and found it nice but to me it was like walking around with an ad spam machine in my breast pocket.

 

[WelshBloke]

If you are talking about ads in your mobile browser, you could install Firefox, as I assume there is a version for iOS, and install an adblocker. I recommend ublock origin. There should be options on which ads to block, or you could block them all!

Firefox with ublock origin and privacy badger!

 

[Zor Prime]

does this apply to android only? I'm on an iphone which imo is better. thanks for the info, I'll have to look into it further, this is the 2nd time I've seen this combination mentioned. I'll have to check in with some ios sites because i know other services exist other than blokada premium. I didn't even know you could block ads on android. I used an android phone for a short time and found it nice but to me it was like walking around with an ad spam machine in my breast pocket.

If there's a spot in iOS that allows you to choose your own DNS server Adguard Home or PiHole should work if you're running your own server.

I have my home router pointed at my Adguard Home server for DNS resolution. On my mobile device, Android, I set it to use my Adguard Home server for DNS resolution as well so even when I'm strictly on cellular and not WiFi I still reap the benefits of Adguard Home.

All the things are blocked, everywhere for me. Including ads on my LG C1 OLED television, however I had to do some homework on that manually myself.

Updating Adguard Home is dead-simple as well after you get it rolling. It's a one-button click from the main screen, you'll get a banner notification at the top of the screen that there's an update available. Click it ... Done.

If you want to get particularly fancy, you can even setup encrypted DNS queries ... which I do, because why not. =)

 

[A///]

Thanks zor, I'll have to look inot it. i don't mind paying for blokada or another service with a set number of calls to a dns server each month. i don't use mobile internet much to begin with but it's always nice not dealing with ads. it had not ocurred to me until yesterday why apple had never done in ios adblocking to protect their consumers from the nasties of ads.

 

[q52]

If you are talking about ads in your mobile browser, you could install Firefox, as I assume there is a version for iOS, and install an adblocker. I recommend ublock origin. There should be options on which ads to block, or you could block them all!

This actually does not work. iOS app store has a restriction that all web browsers must use the Safari browser engine, so all browsers on iOS are just re-skinned Safari. Thus, there is indeed a firefox app for iOS, but it's not the same Firefox as you would run on macOS, Windows, Linux, or Android, and it cannot use extensions from those versions.

There exist ad blocking tools on iOS but the best ones are plugins that only with on iOS Safari, i think.

The next best option is to use something like https://nextdns.io/ which is a freemium service that can do DNS ad blocking for your iOS device (and most all other devices) because implementing on-device DNS host ad blocking is difficult in iOS.

Note however that even with all of these options you still might be subjected to video ads, because DNS ad blocking typically relies on ads to be filtered based on URL hostname; this is not possible for self-served ads that are delivered by the website itself instead of a third party

 

[Shmee]

Ah interesting, I didn't know how different that version of FF was. Still, I suspect that there are decent adblocker plugins for iOS FF and other Safari based browsers? And I do seem to remember that Safari was decent, though I am not sure that is still the case. I have not used or worked on any apple devices in a while.

 

[q52]

Yes my experience was there iOS Safari does have some blockers (iirc this is a semi recent development since iirc Apple previously didn't even have plugins and/or allowed blocking for security reasons) but then you are stuck using only Safari. Personally, I'm pretty embedded with the Firefox account sync across macOS, Windows, Linux, and Android, so being cut off on iOS was not a good solution

Outside of Safari the ad blocking offerings in iOS were much more scant and less reliable except for NextDNS

For comparison, Android has the fantastic DNS-66 app that does on-device DNS host blocking. Very easy and simple. Apple makes you jump through hoops to get the same effect

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, that is unfortunate. But then apple is pretty terrible these days IMO. They have some decent hardware, but too many limitations.

 

[mxnerd]

Pi-Hole alternaive -Technitium DNS server

it's got blacklist feature too.