Modern Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones have impressive value for money, but users often pay their attention for affordable prices. Intrusive ads that appear in unexpected places have become an integral part of the shell of MIUI and the new HyperOS. Especially annoying is the situation when ads pop up right on a locked screen, blocking time, notifications or simply distracting at the most inopportune moment.
Advertising content is implemented by system services that are activated by default immediately after purchasing a device. Users often confuse these ads with viruses, but in fact it is a regular, albeit aggressive, feature of the company's monetization. Fortunately, there are several proven ways to completely get rid of this visual noise and regain control of your gadget.
In this guide, we will take a closer look at how advertising modules work and provide step-by-step instructions for disabling them, learn how to customize personalization settings, manage system applications, and use advanced locking techniques to make your smartphone work exclusively for you.
The nature of advertising in MIUI and HyperOS
To effectively combat the problem, you need to understand the source of the problem: the main culprit behind the emergence of banner ads, including on the Lock Screen, is the MSA (MIUI System Ads) service, which is responsible for collecting data about user preferences and showing targeted content in various shell interfaces.
In addition, a separate app, Glance or the built-in wallpaper carousel, often provides priority access to the screen even in sleep mode, allowing them to show content before unlocking the device. Understanding the differences between system advertising and carousel content is key to successful setup.
⚠️ Note: Disabling system services completely may affect some built-in features, such as recommendations in the browser or personalized offers in the theme store. However, these changes will not affect the basic functionality of the phone (calls, messages, the Internet.
It’s important to note that the ad-show algorithms are constantly updated, and what worked in MIUI 12 may be different from the HyperOS methods, so it’s recommended to take a holistic approach, disabling all possible sources of transactional traffic.
Disabling personalization and advertising identifiers
The first step in the fight for a clean interface is to eliminate personalized advertising, which will not remove all banners instantly, but will significantly reduce their relevance and frequency, and stop collecting data about your activities for marketing purposes.
First, you need to go to your account settings. Open Settings, find the Passwords and Security section, or Account and Sync, depending on the shell version, and here we are interested in the privacy and advertising IDs item.
The following sequence of actions should be performed:
- 🔍 Find Advertising Services and click on it.
- ❌ Transfer the Personalized Advertising Switch to an Inactive Position.
- 🗑️ Click Reset Advertising ID to clear the accumulated profile.
After that, the system will stop using your unique ID to target ads, but that's only half the story, because the display mechanisms themselves can remain active, and the next step will be to work with the user agreement.
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After resetting the advertising identifier, it is recommended to restart the device so that the changes take effect at the level of all system processes.
Management of MSA Service and System Permits
MSA is a central element of Xiaomi’s advertising ecosystem, and it requires caution as the system will periodically try to turn it back on, a method that involves temporarily suspending the service and then revoking permissions.
Go to Settings → Applications → All Apps. In the upper right corner, click on three dots and select Show System Services. In the list, find the msa (MIUI System Ads) app. Click on it and select the Disable option.
The system will issue a warning and start a countdown (usually 10 seconds) and you will have to wait until the timer ends and press Turn off again. If you fail the first time, repeat the procedure 2-3 times.
- 🚫 Go to Permits and turn off network access (Wi-Fi and mobile data).
- 📂 Clear the application data by clicking Memory → Clean up.
- 🔄 Go back to the app list and make sure the service status is “Disabled».
| Parameter | Recommended value | Impact on the system |
|---|---|---|
| Personalization | Off. | Reducing Targeted Advertising |
| MSA Service | Disconnected. | Blocking system banners |
| Network Access (MSA) | Forbidden. | Inability to upload advertisements |
| Recommendations (MIUI) | Off. | Clean folder interface and menu |
⚠️ Attention: Do not remove the service MSA through ADB Or root rights without understanding the consequences, which can lead to a cyclical bootloop on some versions of the firmware.
☑️ Checking the shutdown MSA
Setting up and disabling the wallpaper carousel
Often, a locked screen ad is not a bug, but a feature called "Glance," which replaces a static screensaver on a feed of images with news and inserts, and if you see the changing images and "Details" buttons on the black screen before you enter your password, this is it.
To get rid of this, go to Settings → Always on screen and lock (or just lock screen).Look for wallpaper carousel. Inside the menu, turn off the wallpaper carousel switch.
If a simple switch fails or returns to an active state, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings → Applications → All applications.
- Find the Wallpaper Carusol app or Glance.
- Clear the data and cache, then force the application to stop.
- In the lock screen settings, select a static image instead of a carousel.
For users who want to leave beautiful wallpaper without advertising, there is a caveat: In some versions of MIUI, you can only turn off the "recommendations" inside the carousel, leaving a change in the background, but for guaranteed results, it is better to completely deactivate the service.
What to do if the wallpaper carousel item is missing?
Blocking Advertising Through DNS and DNS
One of the most effective and safest methods that does not require third-party software is the use of private DNS (Private DNS), which filters traffic at the network level, blocking requests to known ad servers.
In modern versions of Android and MIUI/HyperOS This is built-in. Go to Settings. → Connection and Sharing (or Wi-Fi) → Wi-Fi settings. Find a Private item DNS (Private DNS).
Select the DNS provider hostname mode and enter one of the following values:
dns.adguard.comOr alternatively:
family.adguard-dns.comAfter saving the settings, the phone will redirect everything. DNS-This will remove ads not only in the system interfaces, but also in the browser and in some applications. The method works globally for all connections, including mobile Internet.
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Using a Private DNS is a “silver bullet” that blocks up to 90% of ads without installing additional apps and without superuser rights.
Additional sources of advertising in the system
Even after basic settings, ads can break through other channels, and there are many hidden switches in the MIUI shell that activate recommendations in standard applications, and they need to be manually disabled in each component.
Check out the following system applications:
- 🧹 Clean (Security): Open the application, click on the gear settings and turn off Get recommendations.
- 📁 Conductor: Go to the conductor settings and remove the tick from the Recommendations item.
- 🎵 Music and Video: These players also have ad-shows and recommendations that need to be deactivated.
- 📂 Desktop folders: Open any folder with apps, click on the folder name and disable Recommended Apps.
You should also check the settings of the Mi Browser and Mi Video app if you use them. They are often the source of push notifications of an advertising nature. In the Settings → Notifications section, you can limit their ability to display information on the lock screen.