I installed Adguard as a root-free ad blocking solution for android, but so far as I can tell it doesn’t block anything? The app says it’s enabled, even claims to have blocked “19 ads” but every app I’ve tried shows ads. Spotify, youtube, reddit, etc. I saw in the FAQ that for youtube you can “share” a URL with the adguard player, but what’s the point of that? If I wanted to use a separate app I could just use the web player via Brave and it would strip out all the ads too.
I guess I’m wondering what I would be paying for if I upgraded after my trial is over because I see zero difference right now.
Adguard app on Android (not DNS or VPN app that are also available for Android) can be used to block ads by creating pseudo VPN that runs on your phone.
The reason you cannot remove ads in other apps on unrooted device is because of something called root certificate store. Basically there are two of them, one for web, which you currently have and that can’t block specific traffic and system root that is READ ONLY for user (unless you are rooted).
Second most important part is to understand that there’s two types of ads. One of them is third party, which most websites use. Because they’re full website that’s full of ads, you don’t need HTTPS decryption of traffic, you just block entire googleadservices domain.
What YouTube uses and many other apps is pieces of embedded code with resources loaded on your phone from same domain (like YouTube ads, they’re integrated into player and come also from YouTube). To block those ads, adguard needs their certificate added to root trusted store, because that is the only way YouTube will “trust” Adguard to read and modify encrypted HTTPS traffic.
Adguard cannot monitor all apps and system because you cannot add their trusted certificate that would allow them to “unencrypt” traffic.
TLDR: adguard without root acts as local VPN server that can only blocks ads if they are web and blocks traffic on DNS level. The only way you can clear traffic packet by packet is by having your trust certificate inside read only root certificate store that you cannot do unless you have root (highest) level read/write in there.
Edit: it’s not just adguard just so you know. It’s just how android works. I use VPN with Firefox browser and ublock origin in Firefox to get the maximum out of it.
The bottom line is if you want to block ads in every app on your device you’ll have to be rooted. Adguard works perfectly with root but there are some apps or services that won’t make a difference. For instance, I was using a Hulu ad based subscription and the ads are embedded into the shows so there’s no way around it. The apps you mentioned no ad blocker will work for but there are alternative sources like Revanced for YouTube, Xmanager for Spotify and Infinity for Reddit.