Where a game’s ads come from
A mobile game rarely draws its own advertising. It embeds a kit from an ad network — AdMob, Unity Ads, AppLovin, ironSource and a dozen others — and that kit calls the network’s servers over the internet to fetch something to show.
That call is the weak point. Before it can happen, the phone has to look up a name: the address of the ad network’s server. If the answer is “nowhere”, the kit has nothing to display, and the game carries on without it.
That is the whole mechanism, and it explains both what works and what doesn’t. Everything that arrives from a server whose name is only used for advertising can be refused. Everything else stays.
What a name filter stops
Two formats go quietly:
- The banner pinned at the bottom of the screen, refreshed every thirty seconds or so.
- The interstitial, the full-screen page between two levels, with its small close cross.
Both are fetched at the moment they are shown, from the ad network’s own servers. Refuse the name, and nothing arrives. The game usually behaves as if there had been nothing to show.
On 14 September 2026 we tried 52 mobile ad networks against the default filter lists used by AdHole on Android, the same three lists the computer version uses. Forty-nine of them were turned away: Google AdMob, Unity Ads, AppLovin, ironSource, Vungle, Chartboost, AdColony, InMobi, Mintegral, Pangle, Tapjoy, Fyber, Amazon Ads, Yandex Ads, Start.io, PubMatic, Apple Search Ads and others.
Those lists change every day, so that is the state of one day, not a promise. It is also the ceiling: no list stops every ad, and a game can move to a network that isn’t on them yet.
The rewarded video, and the reward that goes with it
Then there is the third format, and it is the interesting one: the video you choose to watch in exchange for a life, a hint, a handful of coins.
Technically it is the same request to the same network. A filter blocks it like the rest. But the game only earns something when the video actually plays, so a game that has shown nothing hands out nothing. Some titles say “no ad available” and leave you where you were.
So the honest summary is this: a name filter doesn’t remove the rewarded ad, it removes the transaction. If those rewards are how you play, you’ll want to switch filtering off for the minute it takes, then switch it back on. Any tool that claims to give you the reward without the video is describing something else.
The three that got through
Of the 52 we tried, three answered normally, and each for a reason worth knowing:
- Facebook Audience Network is served by
graph.facebook.com— the same host as Facebook login. Refusing that name would stop you signing in to your account, so the filter lists leave it alone. It is a good example of a name that can’t be blocked without breaking something you use. - Adjust and AppsFlyer are attribution tools: they count which advert led to an install. They display nothing on screen. Blocking them removes no advertising and breaks links that are supposed to open an app.
That is the shape of the compromise everywhere in this field. A filter that refuses a name refuses it for every purpose that name serves.
Private DNS, the setting already in your phone
Before installing anything, know that Android has had a filtering hook built in since Android 9: Private DNS, under Settings → Network & internet, where you type the hostname of an encrypted resolver (Cloudflare’s setup page describes the steps and the field). Point it at a resolver that filters, and the same banners and interstitials stop, with nothing installed.
What you give up: the resolver’s list is the resolver’s. You can’t switch a list off, add a rule for one game, or see what was refused and what wasn’t. And the encryption is between your phone and that provider, which sees every name you look up.
An app that filters on the device keeps the lists and the rules on your phone, and shows you what it turned away. It costs an install, and an install from outside a store. Both are real choices; the limits described above apply to both, because both work on names.
Why an app like this isn’t on Google Play
It isn’t a matter of taste. Google Play’s Device and Network Abuse policy lists, among its examples of violations, “Apps that block or interfere with another app displaying ads” (Play Console Help).
The consequence for you is practical: a filtering app of this kind is downloaded from its publisher’s site, you allow your browser to install it once, and Android shows the warnings it shows for anything that doesn’t come from a store. What tells you the file is the right one is its published SHA-256 checksum, compared before you open it. Installing on Android, step by step goes through each screen.
What none of this reaches
- The ads inside the YouTube app. They come from the same servers as the videos: there is no ad server to refuse. The same reason applies on a TV and on a computer outside the browser.
- Video with the advertising built into the stream. Catch-up TV and ad-supported video services assemble one stream on their servers, ads included. Nothing on the device can separate them.
- The empty space. A filter stops the ad from loading; it doesn’t redraw the game’s screen. A blank rectangle can stay where the banner was.
- Anything inside the app. Filtering by name doesn’t look inside an app, and doesn’t hide anything an app draws itself. What a filter reaches is the network, and only the network.
- Every last ad. Some will get through. A game can change network, a list can lag behind a day, and a title can bundle its own promotions with no server to refuse.
Sources checked on 14 September 2026 and linked in the text. The 49-of-52 figure is our own measurement, made that day with the default lists.