How to turn off advertising in games on Xiaomi phone

Xiaomi’s modern smartphones are famous for their excellent value for money, but users are often annoyed by the intrusive ads that appear in system applications and games. This is a consequence of the company’s strategy to sell devices at a minimal margin, offsetting costs through advertising integrations. For many gamers, pop-up banners or full-screen commercials become a critical factor that destroys gameplay and immersion.

Fortunately, MIUI and HyperOS provide flexible tools to control what’s displayed on the screen.You can significantly reduce ad noise using built-in privacy settings and dedicated services. In this article, we’ll look at proven techniques to help you remove annoying banners and focus on leveling.

It is worth noting that you can’t completely get rid of advertising in free online games, where it is sewn into developers as the main monetization mechanism, through the phone settings. However, system advertising of the Xiaomi shell itself and advertising in some offline projects can and should be blocked. Below are effective ways to solve this problem.

Disabling MSA service is the basis of a clean interface

The first and most important step is to deactivate the MSA system service (MIUI System Ads), which is responsible for collecting user data and displaying ads in standard applications and games, and without disabling this service, other manipulations may be ineffective, as the system will constantly try to download new content.

To do this, you need to go to the settings menu and find the password and security section, and there's a key switch that controls recommendations. Note that when you try to disable the MSA, the system may ask you repeatedly or temporarily hide the confirmation button to make it harder to opt out of ads.

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If the "Disable" button doesn't press the first time, wait 5-10 seconds and try again.

The disconnection process is as follows:

• 📱 Open Settings and go to Passwords and Security.
• 🔒 Find the access to personal data or system services.
• 🚫 In the list, find the msa service and switch the switch to the "Off" position".
• ⏳ Confirm the action by selecting Stop for 10 seconds and then click Disable.

After these actions, the background loading of advertising modules will stop, not only removing unnecessary banners, but can also have a positive effect on the battery life of the device, since one of the background processes will be stopped.

Set up personalized advertising in your Mi Account

The second layer of intrusive content protection is related to your Mi Account, which collects your preferences to show more relevant ads, and disabling this feature will not completely remove ads, but will make them less accurate and, as a result, less frequent in game interfaces tied to system IDs.

You'll need to access the Internet to log into your account settings, and it's important to look up the privacy and advertising ID section here, and resetting your advertising ID also helps to "reset" the profile that was created by the targeting algorithms.

Follow the following steps to increase privacy:

• 🔐 Go to Settings and select your Mi Account at the top of the screen.
• 📜 Go to the Privacy section and select Advertising Services.
• 🛑 Turn off the option of personalized advertising.
• 🔄 Click Reset Advertising Identifier to clean up the accumulated data.

This measure is especially effective in conjunction with the MSA shutdown. The integrated approach allows you to minimize the digital footprint and reduce the frequency of advertising inserts in system widgets and games.

Using a Private DNS to Block Advertising

One of the most powerful tools for blocking ads at the entire operating system level is the use of private DNS. This method does not require installing third-party applications and works in almost all games where ads are loaded through standard ad networks.

The essence of the method is to forward requests to known advertising servers to an empty address. Your phone will try to download ads, but DNS-The server will simply prevent this from happening, as it will block the connection to the advertiser domains.

To configure the DNS, follow the following steps:

• 🌐 Open Settings and select Connection and Sharing.
• 🔢 Find a private item DNS (usually).
• ✍️ Select the hostname of the provider DNS.
• 📝 Enter the address: dns.adguard.com and save the changes.

After settings are applied, it is recommended to restart the device, you will notice that in many free games, instead of a video, a download error or simply a black screen will appear, after which the game will continue, which indicates that the advertising request was successfully blocked.

⚠️ Attention: When using private DNS Some apps or games may stop working correctly if they rely on the same domains as ad networks.If you encounter problems in a particular application, temporarily return the settings. DNS in the "auto" position".

Limiting background activity for gaming applications

Another effective way to reduce pop-ups and notifications is to severely limit background activity for specific games. Often, ads appear not only during the game, but also in the background when the application is rolled up or launched in the background.

MIUI allows you to configure the access rights for each application you install, so you can prevent the game from accessing the network when it is not active, or limit its background operation, which also helps to save battery power.

Algorithm for setting constraints:

• ⚙️ Go to Settings. → Annexes → All applications.
• 🎮 Find the right game in the list and open its properties.
• 🔋 Select Battery and set the No Limits mode (paradoxically, but in newer versions). MIUI This sometimes helps to avoid aggressive reboots of the advertising service, but it is better to choose Energy Savings for blocking).
• 📡 In the section Data Use, disable data transfer in the background.

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Limiting background data transmission is the safest way to combat advertising, which does not break the functionality of the game, but blocks the loading of banners in the background.

It is important to understand that a complete disconnection of the Internet for a game is possible only in offline projects, if the game requires a constant connection, this method will block only background activity, but not advertising during the gameplay.

Comparison of Ad Blocking Methods

The choice of method depends on your technical background and the specific model of the smartphone. Some methods require minimal action, others give a deeper result. Let's compare the basic approaches so that you can choose the best one for yourself.

The table below compares the effectiveness of different methods for different types of ad integrations, which will help you understand which tool to use first.

As you can see from the table, the combination of MSA disabling and DNS use is the best result with minimal effort, and the rest of the methods should be applied point-by-point if the problem persists.

Use of third-party blocking applications

If the built-in tools aren't enough, specialized applications come to the rescue, and AdGuard, the leader in this field, operates on the principle of a local VPN, filters all traffic passing through the device and cuts off advertising requests.

Installing such an application requires advanced access rights, as it must analyze network traffic, and this is safe if you download the program from the official developer's website, and not from dubious sources.

The procedure for using the blocker:

• 📥 Download and install the app (such as AdGuard or Blokada).
• 🛡️ Allow creation VPN-connection at first start-up.
• ⚙️ Activate protection and select filters (Russian and Mobile Advertising is recommended).
• ✅ Start the game and check the result.

⚠️ Attention: Using third-party blockers can slightly increase battery consumption, as the traffic filtering process requires constant CPU calculations.

This approach allows you to block ads even in applications that bypass standard system restrictions. However, remember that some game developers may block the launch of the application if you use it. VPN-filter.

Radical measures: Internet shutdown and air mode

For completely offline games (runners, puzzles, arcades without multiplayer), the easiest and most effective way is to completely shut down the Internet. If a game does not have access to the network, it cannot physically download the commercial.

You can use Flight mode before launching the game, which ensures that no push notifications, background sync, or advertising will disturb you, and you can turn it on through the notification curtain or in the settings.

An alternative is to create a special profile in the settings:

• ✈️ Enable Flight mode.
• 🎮 Launch the game.
• 📶 If the game requires the Internet (to keep progress), this method will not work.

This is ideal for subway or airplane rides where there's no connection, and not only does it eliminate advertising, it also extends battery life significantly, because the communication modules don't consume energy.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)