Pop-up adverts are the work of Satan. But you can stop them from appearing on your Android phone – all it takes is a few simple tweaks…
Pop-ups are just awful. Everybody hates them. But they’re often unavoidable when you’re browsing online. But what if I told you that you could 100% block ALL pop-ups from appearing on your Android phone? That’d be cool, right?
It would, but, sadly, it is impossible to block 100% of pop-ups from appearing on your Android phone. People find ways around the measures you’ve put in place. But it is still advisable to use the listed settings below to dramatically limit your exposure to pop-ups when browsing on Android.
In this post, we’ll show you EXACTLY how to block most pop-ups from appearing on your Android phone. And, best of all, it only takes a few quick steps, which you can discover in full below.
How To Stop Pop-Ups on Android
- Open Chrome Browser
- Go To Settings In Chrome – It’s The Hamburger-Style Menu in The Top Right
- Scroll Down To Site Settings
- Find Pop-Ups & Select The Option To Block Pop-Ups
This is how you block pop-ups in Chrome. It’s simple to implement and it works about 90% of the time. With this setting applied in Chrome, you shouldn’t see any popups – and if you do, it’ll be a very rare occurrence.
Case in point: I’ve had this setting on for years now and I cannot remember the last time I saw a pop-up on my Android phone!
Alternative Option For Blocking Pop-Ups?
The other, #1 alternative to ridding your life of pop-ups on your Android phone is to use a third-party browser like DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo is considered a privacy browser because it doesn’t collect any data about what you do while using it to look at stuff on the web (unlike Google which basically tracks and monitors everything). DuckDuckGo blocks pop-ups as standard too, so you don’t even need to mess around with settings.
The only potential downside to using DuckDuckGo is that it doesn’t use Google search. Instead, it has its own search algorithm. I use DuckDuckGo A LOT on my phone and, to be honest, I always tend to find what I’m looking for – DuckDuckGo’s search is a lot more “open” meaning you can find information that you couldn’t in a Google search.
This latter point is very important too because it covers what is now termed Google’s Filter Bubble – which is a fancy way of saying that Google is using its search engine to influence popular option (and that is NOT cool).
“Back in 2012,” said DuckDuckGo, “we ran a study showing Google’s filter bubble may have significantly influenced the 2012 U.S. Presidential election by inserting tens of millions of more links for Obama than for Romney in the run-up to that election.”
It added: “Private browsing mode and being logged out of Google offered very little filter bubble protection. These tactics simply do not provide the anonymity most people expect. In fact, it’s simply not possible to use Google search and avoid its filter bubble.”
With DuckDuckGo, you also have the ability to wipe ALL data as soon as your browsing session finishes. This means no cookies are collected, your browsing cache is cleared, and your IP and what it was looking at is no longer kept on any records. If you value online privacy, DuckDuckGo combined with a good VPN is just about as good as it gets.
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Richard Goodwin
Richard Goodwin has been working as a tech journalist for over 10 years. He is the editor and owner of KnowYourMobile.