AshtaLok's Android app blocks ads and trackers by refusing to look up their addresses. It's a good method, and it has limits. You should know both before you install it.
How it works, briefly
Every app has to turn a server name, like ads.example.com, into an address before it can connect. That lookup is DNS. AshtaLok answers those lookups on your phone. If the name is on a block list, the app gets no address and the ad or tracker never loads. If it isn't, AshtaLok looks it up over encrypted DNS and passes the answer on.
What it does well
- It covers apps, not just one browser. Games, news apps and anything else that fetches ads from a separate ad server are covered.
- It stops trackers before they send anything. If a tracker's server can't be found, nothing about your visit is sent to it.
- It's light. Checking a name against a list is cheap, and blocked ads are never downloaded at all.
- It's easy to understand. Every block is one name and one rule, and recent activity shows you both.
What it can't do
Ads served from the same place as the content
DNS blocking works on names. If a service delivers its ads from the same server name as the page or video you want, blocking that name blocks everything. There's nothing to separate at the DNS level. Some sites and apps do exactly this.
Ads in the YouTube app
This is the question we expect to hear most, so here's the plain answer: AshtaLok can't block ads inside the YouTube app on a phone that isn't rooted. The ads arrive from the same servers as the videos. Blocking by address can't separate the two.
What AshtaLok offers instead is its private browser. Share a video from the YouTube app to AshtaLok and it opens there, where the page can be filtered, and plays without ads.
Hiding the space an ad leaves
When an ad is blocked, some apps and pages leave an empty box or a “content not available” notice where it would have been. Removing that needs changes to the page itself, which DNS blocking can't make.
Apps that bring their own lookups
A few apps skip the phone's normal lookup and use their own encrypted DNS or fixed addresses. AshtaLok can't see those requests by name, so it can't block them by name.
What's coming, and what isn't
HTTPS filtering is in testing. When it arrives, it will be able to remove ads served from the same address as the page in supported browsers, using a certificate made on your phone. You'll have to switch it on, and banking and other sensitive apps will be left alone. It still won't change what's possible inside the YouTube app.
No ad blocker blocks every ad. What we can promise is that AshtaLok shows you what it blocked and why, so you can judge how well it works for you.