Samsung's new One UI 9 tool silenced a free game's full-screen ads that AdGuard's free setting missed, but it works by cutting the app off from the internet.
A tester at Android Police found that a hidden Samsung tool stopped the ads he hated most, while a popular free ad blocker did not. The tool is called AI Network Guard, and it arrived with One UI 9, Samsung's latest software for Galaxy phones. It does not filter ads. It cuts chosen apps off from the internet, so ads cannot load.
The writer, Haroun Adamu, compared Network Guard with AdGuard, a free ad blocker. AdGuard works through Android's Private DNS setting, which is a built-in way to route your phone's web lookups through a filtering service. He tried both on three free apps and one ad-heavy website.
In Sudoku by Easybrain, AdGuard blocked the banner ads at the bottom of the screen. But the full-screen ads kept showing up about every minute, forcing him to watch a few seconds before closing them. Network Guard stopped every ad in his offline apps, including those full-screen ones. Even the option to watch an ad for a free hint failed to load.
Because Network Guard blocks the internet, any app that needs a connection stops working. AccuWeather would not load and showed a something-went-wrong error. A short message reading "Access blocked" also popped up at intervals, likely each time a blocked app tried to go online.
It also does not touch websites unless you block your browsers. All ads still showed on weather.com. AdGuard did block web ads, though the site detected it and asked him to turn it off. AdGuard also left apps like AccuWeather working normally.
Network Guard sits in a hidden menu called Connectivity Labs, inside Wi-Fi settings. The steps from the article:
Ads an app already downloaded may still appear. Clearing the app's cache should fix that.
Samsung built Network Guard to cut distractions, so it can also restrict all browsers and games at once and set a daily downtime schedule. It has flaws. It grouped the banking app OPay under browsers and left Samsung Browser off the list. The writer plans to use it only on offline games and utilities that flood him with full-screen ads.
On a Galaxy phone, blocking a free offline game's internet access can end its full-screen ads, but any app that needs a connection will stop working.
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