Solitaire, Sudoku and Word games were once a lot of joy for me. Now it’s just one ad after another. If anyone knows how to get rid of them or apps that aren’t riddled with ads, please post your secrets. Thanx, Dave
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Playing Solitaire, Sudoku and Word games on my cell phone, when it gets to an add I hit my home screen and relaunch the app. That usually will get me out of the add and back to my game, which is typically Solitaire for me.
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This doesn’t work with all apps and if you have to watch an ad to do something in the game you can’t. Well you would have to turn the ad blocker off.
On my Android/Google TV device I use TDUKs DNS switcher and I usually pick “base.dns.mullvad.net”, on my phone I use the Private DNS setting in network settings with the DNS mullvad site.
Firestick is a little more complicated.
I use ATVTools for Android on my phone, but on your phone you can also use Remote ADB. Yes you can still use ADB with the Firestick but not FROM (locally) the Firestick. Turn on debugging.
Two ways to do it:
Set DNS by IP address:
sheldon:/ $ settings put global “dns_servers” “194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4”
sheldon:/ $ settings get global dns_servers
194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4
sheldon:/ $
(If useing remote ADB app add to the line “ADB shell” case doesn’t matter sheldon:/ $ adb shell settings put global “dns_servers” “194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4”) I tend to quote but it isn’t needed, long story, long time UNIX user.
The get command shows the current values the put command sets to the specified values. The above is two DNS servers the first. Is Adguards ad blocking DNS the second is just Google’s, you can have up to three. Sheldon is the host name, don’t type it in, the command starts AFTER the shell prompt (the $).
Second (my preferred) method:
adb shell settings put global private_dns_mode hostname
The above command turns on private DNS, to turn it off:
adb shell settings put global private_dns_mode off
Then, with private DNS enabled:
adb shell settings put global private_dns_specifier base.dns.mullvad.net
You only need to send the off command to disable so this is my preferred method, if you turn it off it will fall back to what ever the IP address settings are currently set too which, if you don’t set them with ADB, will be the IP address you used in Firestick settings .
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I had that same problem until I installed Surfshark. It has that adblocker so now I don’t worry about ads popping up anymore. Even on my laptop, where I play my games, it blocks ads.
Yup, that works, the question was about games and ads, so if your paying for Surfshark already then using the ad blocker in SurfShark is a no brainier. I also use the ad blocker built in my eero router.
My question is home much do you pay for Surfshark? Can you still access games with it enabled?
Most of my game playing is on the phone but the question didn’t state a device. You can use a DNS ad blocker for free. TDUK’s DNS switcher is a couple bucks for all devices it will work on, I’m thinking less than SurfShark. More over using ADB to set the ad blocking DNS server is free and for me at least, pretty easy.
I won’t go into the great debate about Personel VPNs but my only use of a VPN is to hide my IP on certain sites and I won’t pay for one.
You do what you want.
There is a reason that why Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends not using a personel VPN.
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