Reading a post by @GreatJoe 's experience as a new SFOS user highlighted that there currently seems to be no easy solution for ad blocking in SFOS for regular users. From what I could crowd-source and found on this forum, these are our options:
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Hosts Adblock
Working Status: Seems broken from SFOS 4.4
Covers: SFOS and Android App Support
Pros: Set and forget, very simple program/script
Cons: No AARCH64 version, Possible Sailjail issues, Unmaintained/Abandoned -
Defender II
Working Status: Unknown/Unclear
Covers: SFOS and Android App Support
Pros: Set and forget, GUI based, user-friendly
Cons: Have boot-looped devices in the past etc. -
Hosty
Working Status: Working
Covers: SFOS
Pros: It works
Cons: Install by running a foreign script as root, hosty as cron job runs as root (Possible Security/Privacy implications), Not exactly user-friendly to regular users -
AdBlocking on Sailfish OS via /etc/hosts
Working Status: Working
Covers: SFOS and Android App Support
Pros: No extra dependancies to be installed, simple solution (Unlikely to cause issues with SFOS updates?)
Cons: Not exactly user-friendly to regular users -
Just curl a blocklist to hosts file
Working Status: Working
Covers: SFOS only (But can be both with symlinc)
Pros: No extra dependancies to be installed, simple solution (Unlikely to cause issues with SFOS updates?)
Cons: Not exactly user-friendly to regular users -
Privoxy
Working Status: Working
Covers: SFOS and Android App Support
Pros: Extremely powerful solution
Cons: Setup and config is difficult (Or maybe notā¦)(Not for regular user), possibly touching many SFOS system files and configs (Might cause issues with SFOS updates?) -
DNScrypt-proxy blocklist (DNS alternative)
Working Status: Working
Covers: SFOS and Android App Support
Pros: Much more control and many additional features
Cons: Not exactly user-friendly to regular users, possibly touching many SFOS system files and configs (Might cause issues with SFOS updates?) -
Android Firefox-based browser with uBlock Origin
Working Status: Working
Covers: Browser only
Pros: User-friendly
Cons: Only works in the browser itās installed in (Not system wide)
Disclaimer: The list above is entirely based on my own opinion and research and may, and probably do, contain errors. There might be other possible solutions I have not found and thus they do not appear in the list above. Hosts-based solutions seem to require a reboot of the phone before the updated hosts-file is used and no solution to this has been proposed.
So here is the question: What solution has the lowest risk and easiest set up? What solution do you use or would recommend?
P.S. I have used solution 1 for nine years on a Jolla 1 without issues. For newer devices, Iām not sureā¦
EDIT: I do not endorse any specific solution, nor have I tested all of these, YMMV