Hi everyone, I did stumble across adguard and was thinking about buying a family lifetime license (for the apps, not talking about adguard home here).
I really like that there is a tracking blocker included, the app looks clean and easy to use for all family members. They also have an app for android TV which might be interesting.
I trust on pihole and ublock origin, but I am unsure about aguard (in general unsure about privacy oriented companies). When it comes to privacy and security I always try to go for community-driven open source projects.
What are your opinions on adguard? You think it’s safe/worth to use?
For a company that exists to block ads, they sure do spend a fuckton on ads.
Ehh. That’s like accident billboards. I maintain that most people don’t know they can block ads, and a large part of the masses who have heard of it think it’s complicated or too hard for them.
With ad blocking I have a small tension that if I know a sort of thing exists, I presumably will find it when I search for it. So I don’t want another vacuum ad.
If I don’t know something exists then I have to stumble on it somehow.
The bigger problem would be if they didn’t block their own ads. I honestly didn’t even know they did ads so my blocking, of which they’re a part, apparently is working.
True 😂
I wish I could contribute more, but that’s really all I know about them. I hope people with more useful information turn up!
While true, it doesn’t say much one way or another about whether they’re trustworthy or not.
Adguard is great for an extension and a free dns. I opened an account so see what else they have to offer and felt like I can get more out of creating something similar locally on a rasberry pi.
So far they seem legit, I’ve been using them for so long that the first license I bought was lifetime and cost me like $3.
The open source stuff they make (AdGuard Home) looks legit as well.
You can install the apk from their website, it cannot be found on the Play store. It can block stuff at the DNS level. If you are on iOS then you can also do that and you can enable the extension for Safari.
I have started with PiHole, then played with AdGuard Home and loved it so much that it replaced my PiH. I kept it until I found Technitium, which can do all of those two can do and more as it can also act as an authoritative DNS. I would not recommend this to those not interested to really play around with DNS.
Long story short, I still have AdGuard on my iPhone but only use it with Safari as the dns filtering has been plagued by a bug and just drains my battery. The disconnect app can do that with little configuration to do. For pure DNS you could also get DNSsecure, I can pass you the link for iOS but it also exists on Android and it is open source :) https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/dnsecure/id1533413232?l=en-GB
This allows you to change the DNS of your phone so it will override Google/Apple or your ISP
Been Adguard fan for a decade.
They sell your data.
Source?
His ass.
I have done some researches but couldn’t find any evidence that they did that so far.
Yep, adguard is a bit shady, besides it was founded as a Russian company. The fact that they do SSL interception also raises a few extra concerns.
it was founded as a Russian company
Why does that matter?
It does, but there’s no other way to effectively block ads on Android AFAIK.
Generally, without MITM you can only filter at the client side, which needs support of every client app you use, which realistically means they could do a Firefox for Android plugin and that’s pretty much it.
That is only if you use it on a phone as it kinda runs like a VPN, right? They can’t do this stuff if you only use their DNS
