Ads, pop-up windows and other advertising messages on social networks make you think about the question - how to disable advertising in VK and work as usual. To solve this problem, applications (blockers) are used, which, when configured correctly, clear the workspace for users. Below we will look at how to disable advertisements, what programs to use for this, and what their features are. We will also look at an alternative solution for the phone.
Types of advertising on VKontakte and ways to disable it
The block of official advertising in VK is located on the left in the form of three banners, above which there is a note that this is an advertisement.
There is also targeted advertising, which can be found in the feed marked “ Advertising post ”. It is tailored to a specific target audience depending on age, gender, membership in a particular public group or interests.
You can find advertisements in games and applications. And when watching videos.
In 2022, audio advertising appeared that appears while listening to music.
This applies to normal advertising, which does not “attack” and does not cover half the screen. But sometimes, when you go to a site, a banner opens at the bottom of the screen, or it blocks part of the content, this has nothing to do with official and acceptable advertising, this is the work of viruses.
Where do ad blocks come from on social networks?
The most often annoying advertising blocks on the VK social network bother users and are located on the left - few people will like such an abundance of advertising news and sales. That’s why I started receiving more and more emails asking me to get rid of pop-up banners. Well, that means the relevance of today’s topic has finally matured...
Moreover, an excessive number of annoying windows may also be evidence that the user has picked up some kind of virus on his PC, and, therefore, cannot do without the help of anti-virus software.
Advertising on the social network is ordered by many categories of users, since it costs moderately, but boasts a significant breadth of coverage of the target audience. The potential of a social network like VKontakte is truly unlimited, which potential advertisers are rushing to take advantage of. So-called “targeted” advertising is displayed on the left side of the page.
In addition, advertising blocks cover a significant part of the window and interfere with a full view of the page. Even if you didn’t catch the virus, you could very well subscribe to an unwanted extension. The Internet is full of such spam, which can manifest itself not only on the Windows of your PC, but also on Android. Let's see what can be done in such cases.
Why do you need advertising on VKontakte?
Advertising is necessary to promote a business on VKontakte. This is a huge platform with loyal potential clients. You could say this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s annoying when all you hear everywhere is buy-buy-buy, but placing advertising posts in aggregator groups allows you to generate even more useful and interesting content, which is what users actually go to VK for, after communication, of course.
How it works. The owner of the public is active, promotes the group, creates unique content, maintains order in the public, and stimulates activity. And if the public is popular enough, advertisers come to it. For a fee, the amount of which the group owner sets based on the popularity of the public, he places an advertisement. The public lives on, and based on the ad, the advertiser receives leads, that is, clients who will buy, order, or subscribe. In one word they will perform the target action.
Newsletters and warm-up letters come in personal messages if you are subscribed to a specific public that sells some goods or services, and you yourself have given permission to send you letters.
How to block all ads in your browser
Depending on the type of advertising posts, the blocking method will differ. It’s worth noting right away that it may not be possible to completely disable all entries. In games and applications, this is a tool for free access, and the only way to disable advertising is to buy a Pro account. If you receive posts from a separate group in private messages, then to get rid of spam in the form of mailings, just unsubscribe from these publics and prohibit sending messages.
The easiest way to disable most ad blocks in VK is to install a blocker.
Adblock Plus for Google Chrome
The equally popular Adblock Plus blocker, which already has more than 10 million installations, is perfect for the most popular browser. By default, it blocks ads that interfere with viewing content on the Internet, and blocks ads in videos that pop up as banners on top of windows. Acceptable advertising, which is located in the sidebar on websites and on the left in VK, is not blocked. It is considered acceptable. But if desired, these blocks can also be hidden.
To install the extension:
- Follow the link to the download page in the Chrome Web Store.
- Press the button "Install" and confirm the action in the pop-up window.
- Now we go to the VK website and see that the block with advertising on the left has not disappeared.
- Click on the right mouse button and select “Block an individual element on the site", hover the cursor over the block that needs to be hidden, click on it when it is highlighted in pink and in the window that opens select "Block».
AdBlocker Ultimate for Firefox
Firefox browser users can also take advantage of the ability to hide annoying ads using the AdBlocker Ultimate plugin. The plugin blocks all advertisements, including “allowed” ones. There are no whitelists.
To get this plugin:
- Launch the browser and go to the menu by clicking on the button in the form of three bars in the upper right corner.
- Select the item “Add-ons».
- In the search field we write the key query - add .
- The required AdBlocker Ultimate plugin should be at the top of the list.
- On the detailed information page about the plugin, click on the “ Add to Firefox ” button and after checking the plugin, confirm the action in the pop-up window.
This way you can remove advertising in VK not only in the feed, but in video and music,
Blocker for other browsers
If you use another browser, for example Opera or Yandex Browser, there are also various blocking plugins for them. In fact, there are a lot of them in online stores and catalogs. One of the common ones that is suitable for most browsers is AdGuard. You can download it on the official website.
The procedure for obtaining the plugin is as follows:
You download the installer on the website by clicking on the “ Download ” button, then run the .exe file and follow the instructions of the installer wizard. You may need to close your browser during this process. Then configure the program for comfortable protection. In the process, add the plugin to your browser.
Blocking ads using modified DNS
There is another way to block ads on VK. To do this, you will need to connect to the private DNS server of Adguard, which has developed a number of solutions for removing intrusive content. Do the following:
Step 1. Go to the settings menu of your smartphone. To do this, click on the gear icon in the notification shade.
Step 2: Open Network and Internet.
Step 3. Select the "Advanced" section.
Step 4: Click Personal DNS Server.
Step 5. In the “Personal DNS server provider host name” section, enter the new DNS address “dns.adguard.com”. For the changes to take effect, use the “Save” button.
Step 6: Restart Wi-Fi network or mobile data . Restart the VK .
Note! The DNS server change feature effectively blocks ads only on devices running Android 9.0 and above.
How to solve the advertising problem if the blocker does not help
It happens that even blockers are unable to remove annoying and offensive advertising. But this is not the fault of blocking programs, this is evidence that your PC is infected with an adware virus.
To get rid of an adware virus, you need to perform a series of manipulations, after which the pest will be destroyed and you will be able to comfortably work online.
First, uninstall your desktop antivirus. He won't help. It is recommended to do this using a utility to remove other programs. For example Revo Uninstaller or IObit Uninstaller. Be sure to read residual files in the registry during the removal process.
Then download any cloud scanner: Free Virus Removal Tool or Dr.Web CureIt!. Scan and cure your PC from viruses. Next, you need a utility to search for an adware virus, since the above-mentioned antivirus scanners most likely will not detect them, but they will remove the Trojan or worm that brought this adware bastard.
AdwCleaner is perfect for this purpose. We scan and send the detected threats to quarantine.
Everything would be fine, but if we removed all the viruses, there could still be scheduled tasks that created viruses to automatically launch advertising offers on certain pages or to open malicious sites at a given interval. This will have to be cleaned by hand.
To do this you need the CCleaner utility. You can download it on the official Piriform website.
We will not consider its functions and capabilities; that will take a lot of time. Let's get straight to the point. Install the program and go to the “ Tools ” / “ Run ” / “ Scheduled tasks ” section. Carefully review the list of scheduled tasks and disable suspicious ones.
If you don’t know what they mean, look for information about a specific task on the Internet. It may not be malicious or adware. Do the same on the Windows , “ Context Menu ” and “ Windows Services ” tabs.
In Browser Extensions, check if there are any strange plugins that you did not install. They may run advertising content. Disable and then remove suspicious or malicious ones.
You can block ads, but should you?
Such apps allow you to block ads, but before you start, you might want to think about how this will affect the sites you like.
Almost all sites on the Internet make the majority of their revenue from displaying advertisements to visitors. If advertising is blocked, the site will not receive money. And the money received from displaying advertising goes to pay authors and editors, they pay for servers, equipment, photographs, trips and much more. Without this income, the site you are used to visiting every day may simply cease to function.
Many people still prefer to take a risk: online advertising has become too intrusive, consuming a lot of traffic and phone battery energy, and users decide to use everything they can. I'm not saying ad blocking is good or bad, but make sure you fully understand the implications of the technology you're using.
How to block ads in VK on Android
To remove ads in an application on Android, you can use the Lucky Patcher application. You must also have root rights on your phone. Without this condition, nothing can be done.
Download the Lucky Patcher program on your phone, this is an excellent solution if you suddenly need to cut out ads on VKontakte.
- Launch Lucky Patcher. When you launch it for the first time, it will ask you to provide root rights.
- Next, click on the three bars at the top and select “ Download custom patch ”.
- We are looking for our VKontakte application here, click on it.
- Next, select “ Patches Menu ”.
- Then select the “ Custom patch ” item.
- And here we select the patch that disables advertising in the news.
- Check the box next to it and click the Patch button.
- After this, click “ Apply ” and wait for the procedure to complete.
Note: after your VKontakte application is automatically updated, this patch must be applied again. It crashes when updating VKontakte. In this case, we either repeat the described steps again or prohibit the application from updating.
Important: when you obtain superuser rights, if your smartphone is still under warranty, you will automatically lose the opportunity to contact a service center to have your device repaired if something happens.
Disabling a banner through settings
If you use the official client for VKontakte, try the following option to disable the advertising module:
Android application:
- Go to Settings > About > Advertising
- “Advertising enabled” slider (needs to be deactivated)
iOS application:
- Go to the settings section: About the program > Advertising >
- Deactivate the “Advertising enabled” option
However, there is a possibility that this method will not work after updating the VKontakte client.
How to block ads in VK music
If you listen to VKontakte music in the desktop version in the browser, then you can disable advertising in music using the same Adblock Plus extension, which we wrote about above. Unfortunately, when you install the application on your phone, you will remove advertising in the smartphone itself, but not in the music or VK feed.
It's more difficult on a smartphone. You cannot turn off your phone in the official VKontakte application using the method described above. Except for purchasing a subscription, of course.
But there is a small life hack on how to disable advertising in VK on Android. If you don't want to listen to a 30 second video. Just click on the cross to the right of the advertisement and start the track again.
VTosters
If you don’t want to spend even a few seconds turning off the advertising video, much less buy paid subscriptions, you can install the VTosters application. It completely replicates the design and functionality of the official VKontakte application and even more.
In the settings, you can disable advertising in the feed, and by default, when listening to music, commercials also do not start. You can also disable feed caching in the application. Thanks to this, the smartphone’s memory will not become clogged.
Disabling advertising extensions
The appearance of unwanted messages and alerts is often associated with the presence of malware and browser extensions on your computer. First of all, install licensed anti-virus software and run diagnostics on your computer. If the program eliminates such objects, restart your computer.
Third-party extensions can also display additional advertising both on VKontakte and on other sites. It is recommended to first check the list of installed additional components in the browser and remove unnecessary ones.
