Owning a Xiaomi or Redmi smartphone is often accompanied not only by high performance for reasonable money, but also by intrusive marketing support. In-built advertising in the shell of MIUI has become a familiar but annoying phenomenon for millions of users around the world, it appears in system applications, when unlocking the screen and even in folders with icons, which significantly reduces the comfort of the device.
Fortunately, the company's engineers have made it possible to turn off most of the ad modules, although they have hidden these settings deep enough. Getting rid of MSA (MIUI System Ads) requires doing several actions in different sections of the menu in sequence. Below we will detail each step that will help you return a clean interface and stop being targeted.
It is worth noting that the procedure may vary slightly depending on the version of the Android operating system and the modification of the MIUI shell or the new HyperOS. However, the basic principles remain unchanged: you need to find services responsible for displaying content and limit their access to the network or completely disable them.
Disabling MSA System Advertising
The first and most important step is to deactivate the MSA service, which is the primary source of ad integrations in the system, and it's this process that collects your preferences and broadcasts banners in the interface, so you first have to go to the settings menu and find the security and privacy section.
In the list of options that opens, look for Password and Security or Privacy Protection. Next, select Access to Personal Data (or Authorization and Privacy), and list all system services that have access to your data, search for a service called msa in the list, and switch to an inactive state.
The system will warn you that disabling this service may affect the operation of certain functions. Ignore the warnings and press the Disabling button. Importantly, the "Disable" button should be held for 10 seconds until the countdown appears. Once the action is successfully completed, the service will cease to start automatically.
⚠️ Note: If after disabling the msa service, the phone starts to work unstable or access to the theme store disappears, you can return everything back at any time by re-activating this switch.
Setting up the Security Application
Security is one of the main sources of intrusive notifications and pop-ups in the MIUI shell. By default, it is set to show recommendations and news that are essentially disguised advertising. To clear this application, you need to change its internal settings.
Launch the Security app and click on the gear icon in the top right corner of the screen. In the menu that opens, find the Receive Recommendations section and turn it off. This action will remove the news feed and promotional offers that often appear when you start a system scan or clear memory.
Then go back to the main menu of the Security app and go to Clean up. Click on the settings icon (cog) in the upper right corner of this section. Here you also need to find the Receive Recommendations switch and deaktivirovat' it. This will prevent banner ads from appearing in the cleaner interface.
☑️ Checking security settings
Once these steps are done, the Security app will only perform its direct functions of protecting the device and speeding up its operation, no longer being a channel for distributing advertising content, which will significantly reduce the load on the processor and save battery life.
Elimination of advertising in Explorer and Downloads
The standard file manager Explorer and Downloads app also often contain built-in ad modules. Ads here can appear as banners at the bottom of the screen or pop-ups recommending that you install other applications.
To start, open the Explorer app. Click on the menu (three bars or dots) and select Settings. In the list of options, find About or Get Recommendations and turn it off. In some versions of the shell, this item may be called Recommendations.
The same procedure is required for the Download app. Open it, click three dots in the corner of the screen, select Settings, and find the option to Show recommended content. Turn the switch to "Off." This action blocks the display of promotional offers when viewing the list of downloaded files.