How To Block Facebook Mid Video Ads 2021

Are you tired of sitting in mid-roll and post-roll ads while watching videos on your Facebook Mobile App? Well, let's be honest here, most of us do. And while it might seem counter-intuitive and ironic here as we ourselves do rely on ad revenues in order to grow, one frustration that I have is the surge of video ads on Facebook, especially mid-roll video ads (the ones that appear in the middle of the video), which makes the binge-watching experience seemingly frustrating, as some are even NOT SKIPPABLE.

Examples of Facebook Mobile Video Ads implementation. Notice the yellow marks on the video duration indicator on the videos, which indicates the video ad location. REVEALED PHOTO

Post-roll and external video ads are okay, but yeah – pre and mid-roll video ads are personally not my cup of tea.

So I searched on the internet on how to block them – and to my surprise, there's nothing that actually worked appeared.There are some solutions, but all of them do require pesky modifications such as rooting your phone (which I wouldn't do if it is my main mobile phone), as well as leaving the Facebook app entirely and go on another browser just to open a video link without ads – which to my opinion, isn't really that helpful and is more of a pain than relief in itself.

On YouTube, I do pay the YouTube Premium subscription just for that feature – no annoying pre, mid, or post-roll video ads, while still supporting the creators that we love. It's a WIN-WIN situation. Wished Facebook had that as well.

But, just like most of today's invention, I accidentally discovered something that WORKS while doing something out of nowhere.

So How To Actually Block Facebook Mobile App Video Ads?

I actually searched further when I am making this article, but I only saw methods such as changing your Facebook ad preferences (which by the way, doesn't really eliminate video ads at all), installing adblockers (applicable if you're using a web browser instead of the Facebook App), and rooting your phone (NOT RECOMMENDED UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING).

If you are on a desktop though, simply use an adblocker browser extension – that still works.

The solution? Use a VPN

Once again, VPN is our king and savior to the rescue. The story is that I was trying out this VPN from Namecheap (review coming soon) for our VPN roundup this year, and what happens is that I binged-watched some Facebook videos forgetting that I'm still connected with it – and to my surprise, no ads at all despite the ad markers being there.

I know for the fact that some videos might not have ads served due to ad inventory and demand/supply, but this happened many times that I thought this isn't normal.

I precisely haven't tried this with other VPN providers yet (but I'll update this article once I got to), but Namecheap does have very cheap offerings and a FREE TRIAL as well if you want to try if this works for you.

Also, I haven't tried this yet with an iOS phone (just on Android), but I presume that it will work as well (will update once tried and confirmed).

So here's what you'll do:

Subscribe to any Namecheap VPN plan you'd like (if you want the free trial, you must go with the monthly plan)
Create an account with Namecheap (if you don't have an account)
Download the Namecheap VPN app for your smartphone
Connect to the following locations/servers (IMPORTANT): (Seoul-South Korea (SEL), Singapore (SIN), Tokyo-Japan (NRT), Reykjavik-Iceland, Birmingham-United Kingdom)

Some server locations from the Namecheap VPN Android mobile app. REVEALED PHOTO

Other locations tested on multiple Android phones do have mid-roll and post-roll video ads appearing, such as Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, San Jose (US), and Los Angeles (US). That's why the locations specified are important, as some locations still have ads being served.

Don't be confused if you still saw the ad markers (or the yellow spots on the video) indicating that an ad was placed there, as it will be skipped and no mid-roll or post-roll video ads to be served. You'll also notice that even pre-roll video ads were gone. Some server locations connected will just have no ad markers appearing at all.

You may experiment and test multiple locations near you, as the latency will be much lower (meaning that your connection speed will be much faster). In my case, I'm in Asia, so the locations that are close to me would be Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo.

The locations working might also vary according to your current location.

The explanation?

To be honest, I still really don't know – but I think it may have been related to how VPNs work in general. Ideally, it's like paying for a thing like Facebook Premium or an adblocker, whilst also having a privacy tool at your fingertips with a VPN subscription that you can use on many other things, such as unblocking restricted websites and geo-locked contents (full guide soon), unblock blocked adult websites, and much more.

This could have been fixed by Facebook at any time, but for now, this is the best and perhaps the safest and easiest method that works – one like paying for Facebook Premium.

Also, this post isn't sponsored in any way by Namecheap VPN. -Revealedmag.com