Blocking advertising in Nougat 7.0


Question

After upgrading Marshmallow to Nougat I found that hosts-file based ad blockers do not work.
I have tried AdAway, setting it to use a symbolic link to the hosts file, and verifying via file explorer that the /etc/hosts file contains the desired content. AdAway also reports success in its ui.



But annoying ads continue to appear in my apps, interrupting my experience. AdAway DNS logs also continue to report hosts that should have been blocked, no matter I manually enter them in blacklist.



Did Google change the DNS resolution mechanism like Microsoft did in the past for Windows Update hosts (bypassing hosts file, source not yet available the time i am writing this post)?
Can I do something else to block annoying unwanted advertising?


Answer

Short answer


Ad blockers do not work in Nougat until the developers make an update. A beta version of AdAway does the trick but requires to check the new "Systemless mode" in Preferences screen.


Other ad blockers will probably implement similar solutions


Long answer


This is marked Community Wiki for others to contribute. The explanation is not fully clear to me too!! Everything is well explained in #770


Root applications do not normally have access to /system partition, even as root. This because the system partition is readonly by design. However, with mount command you can easily remount a file system in read-write mode and do whatever you like. This is what ad blockers and most root apps used in the past.


But Google changed the way the command mount work, to keep it in simple words. In Android 6, there actually were two coexistent implementations of the mount command, so if you didn't support toybox you could fall back to toolbox.


That is the simple reason why Nougat requires all root apps to update themselves if they ever need (and why ever in the world do you need to be root if not?) to modify the system partition


Topics


2D Engines   3D Engines   9-Patch   Action Bars   Activities   ADB   Advertisements   Analytics   Animations   ANR   AOP   API   APK   APT   Architecture   Audio   Autocomplete   Background Processing   Backward Compatibility   Badges   Bar Codes   Benchmarking   Bitmaps   Bluetooth   Blur Effects   Bread Crumbs   BRMS   Browser Extensions   Build Systems   Bundles   Buttons   Caching   Camera   Canvas   Cards   Carousels   Changelog   Checkboxes   Cloud Storages   Color Analysis   Color Pickers   Colors   Comet/Push   Compass Sensors   Conferences   Content Providers   Continuous Integration   Crash Reports   Credit Cards   Credits   CSV   Curl/Flip   Data Binding   Data Generators   Data Structures   Database   Database Browsers   Date &   Debugging   Decompilers   Deep Links   Dependency Injections   Design   Design Patterns   Dex   Dialogs   Distributed Computing   Distribution Platforms   Download Managers   Drawables   Emoji   Emulators   EPUB   Equalizers &   Event Buses   Exception Handling   Face Recognition   Feedback &   File System   File/Directory   Fingerprint   Floating Action   Fonts   Forms   Fragments   FRP   FSM   Functional Programming   Gamepads   Games   Geocaching   Gestures   GIF   Glow Pad   Gradle Plugins   Graphics   Grid Views   Highlighting   HTML   HTTP Mocking   Icons   IDE   IDE Plugins   Image Croppers   Image Loaders   Image Pickers   Image Processing   Image Views   Instrumentation   Intents   Job Schedulers   JSON   Keyboard   Kotlin   Layouts   Library Demos   List View   List Views   Localization   Location   Lock Patterns   Logcat   Logging   Mails   Maps   Markdown   Mathematics   Maven Plugins   MBaaS   Media   Menus   Messaging   MIME   Mobile Web   Native Image   Navigation   NDK   Networking   NFC   NoSQL   Number Pickers   OAuth   Object Mocking   OCR Engines   OpenGL   ORM   Other Pickers   Parallax List   Parcelables   Particle Systems   Password Inputs   PDF   Permissions   Physics Engines   Platforms   Plugin Frameworks   Preferences   Progress Indicators   ProGuard   Properties   Protocol Buffer   Pull To   Purchases   Push/Pull   QR Codes   Quick Return   Radio Buttons   Range Bars   Ratings   Recycler Views   Resources   REST   Ripple Effects   RSS   Screenshots   Scripting   Scroll Views   SDK   Search Inputs   Security   Sensors   Services   Showcase Views   Signatures   Sliding Panels   Snackbars   SOAP   Social Networks   Spannable   Spinners   Splash Screens   SSH   Static Analysis   Status Bars   Styling   SVG   System   Tags   Task Managers   TDD &   Template Engines   Testing   Testing Tools   Text Formatting   Text Views   Text Watchers   Text-to   Toasts   Toolkits For   Tools   Tooltips   Trainings   TV   Twitter   Updaters   USB   User Stories   Utils   Validation   Video   View Adapters   View Pagers   Views   Watch Face   Wearable Data   Wearables   Weather   Web Tools   Web Views   WebRTC   WebSockets   Wheel Widgets   Wi-Fi   Widgets   Windows   Wizards   XML   XMPP   YAML   ZIP Codes