Xiaomi undoubtedly has a unique business model: the company is committed to operating with a 5% profit margin on the hardware of its devices. But what about its software… and the bombardment of users with ads?
If you own a Xiaomi smartphone, you will surely have come across a series of aggressive advertisements in every corner of the MIUI interface (from system apps, the settings menu, as well as many other parts of the software).
As it becomes clear, the company is looking for alternative sources of revenue generation, part of which are advertising and the provision of additional services (such as the app store, Mi Pay , etc.). However, although the integration of advertising is an essential part of the company's activities and a means of increasing its profits, their increasing visibility in basic system applications reduces the user experience, causing dissatisfaction among its users. And not unfairly.
The good news is that with a few simple steps you can permanently get rid of the annoying ads that appear in MIUI apps.
1. Disable MIUI System Ads
The first essential step is to disable MIUI System Ads or MSA for short. MSA is a system app used to promote and display ads on MIUI devices.
The process is simple. All you have to do is go to Settings -> Additional Settings -> Authorization & Revocation and disable msa.
By revoking the application's authorization to display ads, you will permanently get rid of ads in applications such as Browser, Security, Downloads, etc. The first time you try to disable msa, a pop-up message will inform you that the application's revocation was not successful. Don't give up. Repeat the process, as, as they say, persistence wins. After the third attempt, the setting will be saved successfully.
At this point, we should mention that some versions of MIUI do not allow disabling msa in the above way, so in this case you will have to go to Settings -> Apps -> msa > Restrict data usage, to limit the application's permissions. If neither of the above two methods was successful for you, or you did not manage to completely get rid of the annoying ads, then proceed to the second step.
2. Manually disable Ad Services per app
The next solution is to manually uninstall ads from individual apps, such as File Manager, Music, Downloads, Browser, and so on. Below we will see the steps to uninstall ads in the Downloads app. Open the app and tap the 3 dots in the top right corner to display the menu. Go to Settings and disable the “Show Suggested Content” option.
A similar process can be followed for other applications that bombard you with persistent ads and content suggestions. Through the application settings, locate the relevant option and put an end to the annoying ads.
*It is noted that the tests were carried out on a Redmi Note 5 device, running MIUI 10, however a similar procedure can be applied to smartphones running MIUI 9, MIUI 8 and other versions.
