How to Stop Popup Ads on Android Home Screen

Popping up random ads on your home screen ruining the browsing experience on your Android device is really annoying, isn’t it? Don’t worry. There are ways to get rid of them.

How to stop popup ads in Chrome?

Chrome is the default browser on Android. But with Chrome, you can not block all the popup ads. The only thing you can do is reduce the number of popups that appear on your screen.

Method 1

Open Chrome on your Android device.
Tap on the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the screen.
Tap on Settings from the appeared menu.
Tap on Site settings under Advanced.
Tap on Pop-ups.
Switch off the toggle button next to the “Pop-ups” option.

Method 2: Using Chrome’s Data Saver Mode

Data Saver Mode only shows the essential content of a web page. That means it will show less number of popups ads, banners, animations, etc. which causes less data usage.

Open Chrome.
Tap on the vertical three dots icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
Tap on Settings.
Tap on Data Saver.
Switch on the toggle button next to Off.

If you want to have more reliable popup blocking, then you will have to install third-party extensions to your browser. But Chrome for Android does not currently support any extensions. However, alternative browsers like Firefox and Samsung Internet offer this feature for Android. So using such an alternative browser with third-party extensions, you can have a strong popup blocking mechanism on your Android device. Or you can simply use the Opera web browser without any extensions too.

How to stop popup ads using the Opera Browser?

Opera Browser consists of a built-in adblocker. So you can browse the internet without any hassle of popup ads. Just go to the Play Store, download the Opera browser and install it on your device. Now you are good to go. But this is not a good method if you use any other browser like Google Chrome or Firefox on your other devices.

How to stop popup ads by installing an Ad-block Browser?

Here, we use Ghostery Privacy Browser that offers you powerful ad-blocking as well as tracker protection features with it. Follow the below steps for blocking popups using this extension.

Tap on three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the screen.
Switch on the toggle button next to the Block popups option.

To block aggressively, follow the below steps.

Go to Ghostery.
Tap on Tracker Blocking Options.
Select Block Everything.

Apart from the popup ads that come when browsing the internet, third-party apps installed on your Android device also display such ads on your Home Screen. If you want to get rid of these ads, then you will have to disable or uninstall those apps.

An app can show ads if those ads comply with the policies of Google Play. If an app is showing ads violating those policies, then you can report that to Google. To report it, go to the app page in Google Play Store and tap on the “Flag as inappropriate” option at the bottom.

How to know which App is showing the popup ads?

If the ads are recently appearing on the screen, then that might be caused by a newly installed app or recently updated old app.

To identify the exact app that causes the popup ads, follow the below steps.

1. Battery optimization or flashlight apps frequently show such kinds of pop-up ads on your screen. So if you have recently installed such type of apps on your device, then disable or uninstall them and check whether the ads are still showing up.

2. Below mentioned apps also may display popup ads on your lock screen. If you have already installed any of the below apps, then disable or uninstall them to get rid of these ads.

Photo Editor Pro
Dolphin Browser
VideoShow video editor
Battery Doctor
Solo Launcher
Super-Bright LED Flashlight
Xender
ES App Locker
Z Camera
GO apps
XBrowser
Kitty Play
LOCX: App Lock
Peel Remote app
Photo Collage Editor
TouchPal apps
360security
HiFont
Apps2SD
FotoRus

3. An app should be active on the device to show an ad. So you can check the recently active apps when an ad appears on your screen. Uninstall them one by one and check whether the problem still occurs. For that,

Go to Play Store

Tap on the hamburger menu icon in the top-left corner of the screen.
Tap on My apps & games.
Tap on the Installed
Tap on three vertical lines next to the On this device
Select Last used from the Sort by popup box.
Tap on the app name.
Tap on the Uninstall

Using an Ad Detect Plugin

Ad Detect Plugin-Handy Tool is an example of such Ad Detect Plugins. This app will check which apps on your device contain ads and notify you when a malicious ad is detected.

Using Ad Network Detectors

Ad Network Detectors block the connections between an Android device and ad networks after identifying them. Examples for such apps are AppBrain Ad Detector and Addons Detector.

If you want a more powerful solution, then restoring a backup that was taken before the adware installation or factory resetting your device will be the perfect solution.