How To Turn Off Ads On Your Samsung Phone

While Samsung Galaxy phones are among the best Android devices on the market, a major annoyance with them is the presence of pre-installed apps and services that display ads. This issue is not limited to budget models, as even Samsung's flagship smartphones, such as the Fold and S24 Ultra, also show these ads. Although some of these ads are meant to provide personalized content and deals, most users often find them intrusive or annoying. 

Since most of these ads typically appear on the lock screen and notification panel, among other places, they can be difficult to ignore. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to stop these annoying ads from appearing on your Samsung Galaxy phone.

From configuring your Samsung account privacy preferences to managing notification settings for Samsung's built-in apps, this guide will walk you through all the necessary steps to eliminate ads on your Samsung Galaxy phone, ensuring a more enjoyable experience.

News and special offer alerts are usually advertisements that Samsung shows on your phone to promote its products and services. These ads can appear in various forms, such as push notifications, emails, or text messages. Additionally, you should disable the "improve personalized advertising" option, which allows Samsung to use your location data to customize ads for you. By turning off this feature, you can prevent your location information from being used for targeted ads.

While setting up your phone, you may have inadvertently accepted Samsung's customized ads and marketing program. Thankfully, it's quite easy to turn these alerts off if you find them intrusive. Here are the steps for the same.

1. Open the Settings app and tap on your Samsung account at the top. 
2. Tap on "Security and privacy."
3. Turn off the toggle next to "Get news and special offers" and then choose "Stop" to proceed. 
4. Disable the toggle next to the "Improve personalized advertising" option and select "Turn off" to confirm.

Samsung's wallpaper services often include dynamic wallpapers that update regularly and may display ads as part of the content. This is especially common on budget and mid-range Samsung phones, such as the A, F, and M series, and is not typically found on flagship models like the S24 series and the Z series of foldable phones.

Lock screen wallpaper services like Glance frequently display ads and promote apps and games directly on the lock screen. The good news is that you can turn them off to ensure your lock screen experience isn't filled with ads. Here's what you'll need to do:

1. Open the Settings app on your Samsung phone and scroll down to tap "Wallpaper and style."
2. Tap "Change wallpapers" and then scroll down to select "Wallpaper services." 
3. Select the "None" option to disable wallpaper services.

Once you make the above changes, your Samsung phone's lock screen will show a static wallpaper and you won't be bothered by any ads.

In addition to lock screen ads, Samsung also sends ads through push notifications. These notifications can include promotions for new Samsung products, brand deals through Samsung Pay, or other marketing messages. While some notifications may offer helpful information, they can also be intrusive and disrupt your experience. To minimize these interruptions, you can adjust the settings for specific Samsung apps. For example, turning off notifications for apps like Samsung Push Service, Galaxy Themes, and Samsung Wallet can significantly reduce the promotional content you receive. Here's how to do it:

1. Open the "Settings" app and scroll down to tap "Notifications."
2. Go to "App notifications." 
3. Scroll through the list and turn off the toggles next to Samsung Push Service, Galaxy Themes, and Samsung Wallet. 

Similarly, the Galaxy Store app sends notifications about app and game promotions. While you can't disable Galaxy Store notifications entirely in One UI, you can disable promotional content by configuring notification categories for the Galaxy Store app. Here's how:

1. Open the Galaxy Store app and tap the menu (the hamburger icon) in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap the gear icon in the top right corner. 
3. Under "General," tap "Notifications" and select "Notification categories." 
4. Turn off all the notification categories except for "Important updates." 

This will prevent annoying ads from appearing on your Samsung phone's notification panel, providing you with a more streamlined and less cluttered experience.