I've been using AdGuard's DNS resolver on my Android phone for a couple of months, and I'm pretty satisfied with it.
The idea is that it filters out ad networks at the DNS level, so there is no need to root the phone (nor to install any app). You just put dns.adguard-dns.com in your "private DNS" settings and that's it.
Recently, though, I've seen a couple of people around here mentioning how Adguard is not trustworthy, or "kinda shady". What's your take on them? Their privacy policy seems OK to me, but I'd be interested to know more about them.
Adguard is good, very good. Their rules are default included on uBO, they know their jobs well so getting very good product. As an alternative you can consider NextDNS
I JUST suggested AdGuard to two non-techie normie friends, so y'all better not make me take it back! ;-) That said, I've been using it on my Pi-4 at home and on my Android phone for more than a year now.
No opinion on AdGuard, but there are several options for ad blocking DoH:
- https://ahadns.com/
- https://blahdns.com/
- https://controld.com/free-dns
- https://libredns.gr/
- https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls/
- https://rethinkdns.com/
I have no idea if adGuard is trustworthy or not, I personally use adAway which is open source and under a GPLv3 license. Perfectly satisfied with it.
I was using AdAway before switching to Adguard. I loved it, but my problem with it was that it kept disconnecting randomly.
There's zero evidence of any wrongdoing or shadiness other than them having employees living in Russia. The company itself moved to Cyprus, many of their engineers left Russia, none of their servers are physically located in Russia, and they publicly disavowed Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
This doesn't mean Russia couldn't apply massive pressure by threatening family members, etc, of course, but I personally have no concerns at this time and use AdGuard Home (their local adblocking DNS server) in my LAN and their iOS app on my devices. The iOS app in particular uses Apple's content-blocking Safari tech so it should be completely safe so long as you don't pay for a VPN or use a local VPN to block everything outside Safari.
If you're rooted on Android, definitely use AdAway instead, it just replaces the hosts file.
https://adguard.com/en/blog/official-response-to-setapp.html
it was good when I used it but I switched to nextdns and have liked it a bit more. adguard is based in Russia (I trust the company but who knows what laws could come about) and nextdns has been way more performant for me.
note: nextdns is based in the US so you're not really winning there but I choose to trust them so far
