AdAway

For the American basketballer, see Jalen Adaway.

AdAway is a free and open-source ad-blocking application for the Android mobile operating system.^[4][5]

AdAway
AdAway 5.12.0 homescreen on Android 11
Original author(s)	Dominik Schürmann[1]
Developer(s)	mrRobinson (former); PerfectSlayer (current)
Stable release	6.1.4[2]  / 27 October 2024; 9 months ago (27 October 2024)
Repository	github.com/AdAway/AdAway
Operating system	Android 8 or later
Size	13.5 MB
License	GPLv3[3]
Website	adaway.org

History

It was started in June 2011 by Dominik Schürmann but is now maintained by other developers.^[6] In 2013, it was removed from the Google Play store along with other ad blocking apps. After its removal, AdAway used the app store F-Droid to serve downloads.^[7]

Features

AdAway blocks ads using hosts files from various locations and combines them automatically. The user is able to block or trust additional domains, or add a new hosts file altogether. There is an option to log DNS requests to help in this task.^[5] AdAway requires in the actual version 5.10.0 either root access (because the hosts file is in the system partition)^[8] or the use of a local VPN on non-rooted devices, which is provided by AdAway itself. It is mainly used to remove ads on apps completely for free.