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What's a good phone now that doesn't force ads on me? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/android@lemmy.world
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I'm using a Pixel 6 Pro right now, and I'm looking around to see if there are any good phones. However, I have heard that there are ads in the newer flagship phones (Samsung, Xiaomi). I am willing to spend around USD$750 on a new phone, but I just don't want any crazy ads or preinstalled apps like Facebook. Are there phones that don't suck nowadays? I can buy a phone that is sold in the US, Canada, or EU.

(I don't want to go through menus to disable ads (Xiaomi), and I'm currently looking at phones other than the Pixel lineup to see if there's a better option for me)
(I also don't want to mess around with custom bootloaders/systems, I rely on Google services way too much)

EDIT: If it wasn't clear enough, I am not looking for things like GrapheneOS or LineageOS or others, I am looking for a phone and judging based on the stock system on it.

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[–] 18 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I'm on a pixel 6a, I swapped out my DNS server to dns.adguard-dns.com and now I don't get ads on any app or game I use, excluding YouTube (which I use very rarely).

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    I've got a 6a and I ended up rolling my own DoT server so that it would adblock, but also resolve to servers in my own country.

    I also moved to GrapheneOS. The only Google stuff that broke was Google Wallet's tap payment thing. Reportedly even Android Auto is supported now.

    Oh - my kid just got a Motorola G84. It was a very cheap handset for 12GB RAM and no ads so far. Very close to stock Android too.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Is it really? The hold up for me switching to Graphene has definitely been android auto compatibility. That's huge.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Just taking the YouTube app off my home screen and replacing it with a Firefox shortcut has done wonders for my sanity. It's really disorienting now, when I follow a YouTube link that opens up the app. All of a sudden it's all ads and shorts and sponsors.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    ELI5 swapping the DNS? (I know what it is, but thought that wasn't possible on the device.)

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (2 children)

    I believe you just add that to your network settings for private dns.

    Go to settings - network & Internet - scroll down to see Private DNS and add a DNS of your choice like dns.adguard-dns.com.

    Worked for me so far as I use pihole on WiFi at home but now not seeing adds on mobile data like I used to.

    Update, this will override all DNS settings it seems. Just did a test at home and it now points to this DNS vs my pihole. If someone knows a better way, please lmk otherwise I'll poke around more.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Unfortunately, there isn't one, since it's working as intended, short of pointing the phone DNS and Pihole to the same servers.

    You're overriding the DNS of the phone to point to the new server, and it will prioritise that over asking the router for one, like it might otherwise do if there wasn't one configured.

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