I managed to get this far without rooting

1. Have you ever experienced this?

When browsing news sites or curation sites on your smartphone, ads cover the entire screen, or you are suddenly redirected to another ad page while reading an article. Some even show suspicious pop-ups claiming you've "won a prize," which is incredibly frustrating.

Even though I had heard that "rooting (a somewhat advanced modification that allows you to operate smartphone administrator privileges beyond the scope originally restricted by the manufacturer) improves the effectiveness of ad-blocking apps," I had heard that rooting voids your warranty and increases security risks, so I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I personally felt stressed by the sheer number of ads, but I was resistant to rooting. While looking for a way to solve this, I learned that you can block many ads simply by changing your DNS (the system that links internet addresses to human-readable domain names) settings. When I actually tried it, the number of ads displayed decreased to a noticeable level, and I remember feeling relieved, thinking, "Was it really this simple?"

This note is a guide I've compiled from that experience on how to suppress ad displays in your browser by changing your smartphone's DNS settings without rooting. It covers how to change the settings, how to verify the effectiveness, and points to keep in mind.

2. Things I want to say first (Who this is not for)

• If you are using a smartphone provided by your company or school and there are restrictions on changing network settings, or if you require permission to do so, the procedures covered in this note may not be executable as is. Please check in advance whether you are allowed to change the settings.

• For those who want to remove ads displayed within apps (such as game app ads or ads on social media timelines), the DNS setting changes covered in this note are primarily effective for browsing websites in a browser, and I feel their effect on in-app ads is limited.

• For those who are not confident in troubleshooting on their own if a specific app malfunctions, I recommend proceeding with caution, as changing DNS settings can rarely affect the operation of certain services, as described later.

This is written for those who do not fall into the above categories and want to "reduce ad displays in the browser as much as possible without performing major modifications like rooting."

3. The overall flow in 3 steps

1. Find where you can change the DNS settings for Wi-Fi or the entire network within your smartphone's settings.

2. Set the address of a DNS service that has the function to block ads and unnecessary tracking (a mechanism that tracks user behavior).

3. After setting it up, check if the ad display in your browser has actually decreased.

In the paid section, I will break these three steps down specifically to the level of actual setting screen operations.

4. This is the paid section

From here on, I will write down the setting procedures I actually use, one by one. Since menu names and layouts on the screen may differ depending on the Android version and model, please read this as a general flow.