Does Youtube Red or whatever it is still block ads? I was grandfathered into Youtube Red through my Google Music subscription, haven't seen an ad on Youtube in years, absolutely worth it.

I use Brave browser for my browser ad blocking.

I think there are some options for ad blocking system wide, but they may require root access and what not.

I think the best way to block Youtube ads is just to pay for Youtube, as far as I know.

I would recommend not using stuff like Blockada, since they emulate VPN's and can be bad for battery life, in my experience (and don't let you use VPN's at the same time). I would recommend using a DNS based ad blocker, like AdGuard DNS. I'm pretty sure private DNS is compatible with any Android phone on Android Pie or higher.

For Youtube, you can use Youtube Vanced (a modded version of the regular Youtube app) or Newpipe (more minimalist, very lightweight) on unrooted phones pretty easily.

For browser ad blocking, I would use Bromite, a modified version of chromium for Android with some cool additions.

I use Bromite, Youtube Vanced and AdGuard DNS and haven't seen an ad in months.

For some reason I've made it a habit to watch YouTube in my browser instead of a dedicated YouTube app. So my ad-blocker extension takes care of those ads for me. I use Ghostery these days, but there's not much difference between the various Firefox ad-blocker extensions, in my experience.

For YouTube, use YouTube Vanced.

For everything else, try changing your dns to nextdns.io

Look into using wireguard+pihole. Wireguard is very easy on the battery especially split tunnel. I sometimes use full tunnel to see if it makes a large diff in battery... If you're more privacy oriented, as well, use unbound dns. Pihole stops ads on my iphone. I suspect it would block ads on your Android, too.

For now I use a google cloud Virtual machine. When I get the opportunity I'll look into using raspberry pi to tunnel from home.