This is an open-source library that can be freely used in Android applications to detect ad blocker.

Project overview

Many ad blockers exist on Android, this is a real problem for developers that rely on ad incomes.

This project proposes an open source library that can detect most of ad blockers.

Then developers can display a dialog to inform user that an ad blocker has been detected and to propose, for example, to buy an ad-free version of the application or to quit.

Details

Currently, the following methods are used to detect ad blockers:

• Search for known ad blockers application package names
• Resolve known ad server domains and check if it redirects to a local address (work for both DNS & hosts file modification)
• Check in hosts file for known patterns (work for hosts file modification)

Detection methods will not give false positive but may not detect some ad blockers.

To be done:

• Ad filtering proxy detection

This library will be improved regularly to ensure a maximum ad blocker detection rate.

Usage

Setup with Eclipse/ADT

Please go to the legacy-eclipse-project branch for the Eclipse project and documentation.

Setup with Android Studio/Gradle

At first, you need to clone the source code or download a snapshot. You will get a adBlockersDetector folder which is a Gradle module.

To use this module in your Android Studio project, simply add the following lines to your settings.gradle file:

include ':adBlockersDetector'
project(':adBlockersDetector').projectDir = new File('<replace with correct path>/adBlockersDetector')

And in your build.gradle file:

dependencies {
    compile project(':adBlockersDetector')
}

Examples

Simple example

public void checkAdBlocker()
{
    final AdBlockersDetector abd = new AdBlockersDetector(this);
    // Asynchronous detection in a background thread
    abd.detectAdBlockers(new AdBlockersDetector.Callback()
    {
        @Override
        public void onResult(boolean adBlockerFound, Info info)
        {
            if(adBlockerFound)
            {
                new DialogBuilder(MyActivity.this)
                    .setAdBlockerInfo(info)
                    .show();
            }
        }   
    });
}

In this example, a dialog with only a Quit button is displayed on ad blocker detection.

The method checkAdBlocker() should be called in an Handler, by a delayed message sent in onCreate().

Adding a contact button

A contact button can be added to propose to the user to send a mail to the developer:

public void checkAdBlocker()
{
    final AdBlockersDetector abd = new AdBlockersDetector(this);
    // Asynchronous detection in a background thread
    abd.detectAdBlockers(new AdBlockersDetector.Callback()
    {
        @Override
        public void onResult(boolean adBlockerFound, Info info)
        {
            if(adBlockerFound)
            {
                new DialogBuilder(MyActivity.this)
                    .setAdBlockerInfo(info)
                    .setContactButton("[email protected]")
                    .show();
            }
        }   
    });
}

Adding a buy button

public class MyActivity
    extends Activity
    implements AdBlockersDetector.Callback, DialogInterface.OnClickListener
{
    public void checkAdBlocker()
    {
        final AdBlockersDetector abd = new AdBlockersDetector(this);
        // Asynchronous detection in a background thread
        abd.detectAdBlockers(this);
    }

    @Override
    public void onResult(boolean adBlockerFound, Info info)
    {
        if(adBlockerFound)
        {
            new DialogBuilder(this)
                .setAdBlockerInfo(info)
                .setBuyButton(this)
                .show();
        }
    }
    
    @Override
    public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which)
    {
        if(which == DialogBuilder.BUTTON_BUY)
        {
            // Propose to buy the ad-free version
            final Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
            intent.setData(Uri.parse("market://details?id=com.android.example"));
            startActivity(intent);
            Tools.quitApplication();
            // It can be replaced by an in-app product...
        }
    }
}

Improvements

To improve the detector, it is possible to easily edit constant arrays in AdBlockersDetector.java.

Currently there are four of them.

Adding app name

If you discover a new ad blocker application, just add its package name to the following array:

private static final String[] BLOCKERS_APP_NAMES = 
    {
    //...
    "full.application.package"
    };

Blocked hosts

To check if some other ad servers may be blocked, complete the following array:

private static final String[] BLOCKED_HOSTS = 
    {
    //...
    "a.admob.com",
    "mm.admob.com"
    };

For each domain, the library check whether it resolves to a local address.

hosts file path

If on some system the hosts file is in a special folder, add the full path to the following array:

private static final String[] HOSTS_FILES = 
    {
    "/etc/hosts",
    "/system/etc/hosts",
    "/data/data/hosts"
    };

The library checks if these files contain one of the pattern defined below.

hosts file patterns

You can add patterns to look for in hosts file in the following array:

private static final String[] HOSTS_FILE_PATTERNS = 
    {
    "admob"
    };

Adding translation

Currently, text strings (used in the provided dialog for example) are translated in English,Chinese & French. You can add support for your native language by adding a strings.xml file in res/values-xx.