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I'm using Private Internet Access's VPN via its App and now I'd also like to additionally use Adblock Plus.
The problem however is that I apparently can only use either VPN or Adblock Plus - but not both in combination.
Is it possible to use both by changing some setting in either of the Apps or of my phone ?

It says it couldn't change the proxy settings of my phone so I should do it manually. But as all traffic is routed through the VPN changing the proxy-name to "localhost" and the proxy-port to "2020" didn't help. It keeps on waiting for traffic on Port 2020. I guess it comes down to routing the VPN traffic through the proxy. But maybe there's also another solution to it (like another Adblock App that works differently for example).


My phone:
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, I8160
Firmware 4.1.2
Rooted

The Error Message (roughly translated):
"Seemingly no traffic was routed through adblock plus. Adblock Plus couldn't change the proxy settings of your device. Please configure them manually."

2 Answers 2

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There are good reasons why you cannot use such a combination:

  • routing your VPN traffic via another proxy might compromise it, thus rendering your VPN useless
  • doing it the other way around won't work, as the Adblock proxy then would need to be behind the VPN one – which you cannot establish on your device

So what you need is, as you correctly pointed out, an ad-blocker working by different means. Examples include (without giving any recommendation here, just listing possibilities):

  • something working via the hosts file (i.e. routing all ad-requests "to /dev/null" (or rather to 127.0.0.1, which is your device itself, which doesn't have them → nothing returned to display)
  • something "nulling" the ad modules themselves (i.e. "disabling" them)

None of those are "to be found" at Google Play for obvious reasons (though there might be some which Google either didn't recognize yet, or which have the corresponding activity hidden from the UI itself by hiding it, or which are simply ignored as "not fit for international use").

I could name some of the latter two categories, e.g. LBE Security Master (which is only available in a Chinese version on Play (see XDA for a localized English version)). There are also several apps working with the hosts solution, which you can find on e.g. F-Droid or Aptoide (see my app-list on Ad-Blockers for examples).

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    Thanks! I actually was pretty surprised Adblock Plus required proxy-settings as I thought it would work by hosts-file settings and other local set ups only. I'm using AdAway now.
    – mYnDstrEAm
    Nov 1, 2014 at 22:40
  • Thanks for your feedback! Yes, that's an app I can approve (though I never used it myself; I use one of those evil "module disablers" ;) But I also usually purchase apps, if possible – so the "evil ones" are just applied to the "freemium apps" not having a "payed companion", basically.
    – Izzy
    Nov 1, 2014 at 22:47
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For non-rooted phones see my relevant question here. Currently I'm using a VPN connection for my NetGuard firewall.

If you have a non-rooted phone you can use a VPN and then use the browser Firefox for Android and install an adblock AddOn to it (like UBlock Origin). Or simply use the Firefox Klar browser which blocks ads and tracking by default.

As far as I know there are no adblockers for non-rooted phones that also block ads in apps and don't use VPN. One exception I know of is pi-hole which isn't a solution in my and most cases.

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