One of the ironies of modern-day capitalism is that whole industries depend on foisting ads on customers, despite the fact that no one actually wants them. Most of the material I get isn’t even relevant to my interests. When I lived in Alberta, for example, I repeatedly got ads for agricultural equipment and datacenter power supplies, which are utterly useless for a tech journalist who’s mostly into weightlifting, PEVs, and gaming.

I think we’ve all fantasized about the idea of blocking ads on subscription streaming services, especially now that companies are wedging commercials into their cheapest tiers. Hypothetically, it is possible, but the big services have taken steps to prevent this. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

What options do you have for blocking ads?

Fewer and fewer

Let’s cut to the chase on this one: if you want to strip out ads, your best bet is to watch content using your Mac or Windows PC’s web browser, and search for plugins (a.k.a. extensions) specifically geared for the service you’re looking to filter. Native streaming apps only give their creators more control. Be cautious here — there is the potential for plugins to be malicious, particularly if they’re not delivered through reputable sources like the Apple App Store or Chrome Web Store.

The news only gets worse, I hate to say. Services have been aware of browser loopholes for a long time, and taken steps to crack down on them. Google, for instance, is in a constant arms race to keep ads flowing on YouTube, and services like that and Netflix have taken to delivering commercials through the same internet domains as their content. This means that conventional filtering techniques often fail — if you block ads, you block the rest of the stream. You may well be able to find a functioning plugin, but you can’t count on it lasting forever.

On Android/Google-based TVs, you can potentially sideload blockers like AdGuard for Android TV. These won’t necessarily work for the services you care about, though, and sideloading is not only a cumbersome process, but risky. That’s because you may have to enable access to unknown sources. If you accidentally install a malicious app, it could have free reign. Should you find a reputable blocker, it’s wise to revert your TV to default security levels as soon as possible, assuming that won’t kill the blocker’s technology.

The nuclear option is a personal DNS (domain name system) server, such as a Pi-hole. This intercepts ads on your local network by refusing traffic from their associated domains, regardless of what device you’re using. As far as the server’s concerned, your iPhone and Roku TV are no different than your computer. But with countermeasures like that Netflix strategy I mentioned earlier, a DNS server could accidentally block content as well, so some services may have to be left off your blacklist.

Speaking of which, DNS servers require a certain amount of tech savvy, as well as extra hardware. You can theoretically set one up on your main Mac or Windows machine, but that’s impractical, as you have to leave the computer on and connected for the software to work. That’s where Pi-holes come in, since they’re cheap Raspberry Pi devices that don’t consume much energy. The trouble is that you have to tinker with Linux on them, then reconfigure your router’s DHCP settings so client devices use the Pi-hole as their DNS source. This is worth doing if you want to block more than just streaming ads, no matter how intimidating the process might look — but if streaming is your sole focus, the odds of success aren’t great, and your investment may actually backfire.

Avoiding VPNs, and final thoughts

The beatings will continue until morale improves

While you may stumble across VPN (virtual private network) providers that claim they can block streaming ads, even from the likes of Netflix, take that with a gigantic grain of salt. They don’t have a secret tactic against those same-domain ad delivery mechanisms, so all they can do in those circumstances is try to route you through a country where your subscription tier is ad-free, or at least has fewer ads. If one exists, you won’t get access to the same content library, so you might not be able to watch the titles you were hoping for.

All of this info is no doubt disappointing, and evokes some of the irony from my intro. What point is there to sabotaging ad blockers, when you think about it? Anyone willing to go to the effort of installing one clearly isn’t going to rush out and buy the products they’re being sold. The answer, most likely, is that streaming services have to prove they’re delivering ads to make money from them, so your personal feelings on the matter are irrelevant. Psychologically, we’re also more vulnerable to marketing than we sometimes think.