Android Nougat release and what does it mean for AdGuard users

Today Android developers announced about Android 7 (also known as Android N, or Nougat) release in their official blog. This brings many new features, but the most important (and sad) for us are HTTPs filtering-related changes.

So, why exactly we are not so eager about new changes? Now, apps designed specifically for new Android Nougat, do not trust user-installed certificates by default. The apps developer has to manually indicate in a special configuration file that his app trusts user certificates. We do not expect many developers to go this way.

What are the consequences for Adguard in terms of blocking ads and trackers?

• In-browser ad blocking quality will remain on top. These news do not affect filtering in browsers in any way.
• We will continue to block ad servers. Fortunately, up to 90% of all ads in apps are donwloaded from ad servers.
• But we are helpless now in the face of some of the more "complex" ads, which are not downloaded from ad servers (for example, YouTube ads).

But we did some preparation for the new Android version. Starting with v2.7, Adguard automatically detects the target Android version for every app, and disables HTTPs filtering for apps designed specifically for Android N.

In our future plans - and that's good news for users with ROOT access - we are going to develop an algorithm that will allow to get around these restrictions, provided you have ROOT access. If you don't though, unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done.

Header photo by Asif Islam / Shutterstock.com