For some years now, advertising by SMS has spread almost by chance: old operators who ask us to return with favorable rates but also other sellers (often not related to the telephone operators) who have managed to get their hands on our number of phone and to kick off a new form of very invasive spam. Fortunately, our smartphones can prevent these useless messages from disturbing us continuously: in this guide, in fact, we will show you how to block unwanted advertising SMS messages on Android and iOS. In the guide we will find both the methods integrated within the operating systems and the (free) apps that we can install to integrate the block on all phones; the only differences are related to the method of inserting the filters (which can be both automatic and manual).
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How to block SMS advertising with integrated filters
Some modern telephones integrate a filtering system for received messages, to be programmed according to keywords or telephone numbers makes it blocked. Obviously the most effective filter is the one based on keywords: it is sufficient that the message contains one or more "spam" words to trash it immediately without even making the phone ring or vibrate. Phone number filtering is not very effective, as those who use SMS to send advertising messages or offers will use different phone numbers, so we will only waste time blocking them all.
On some Android smartphones (such as Xiaomi for example) it is possible to set a filter for SMS messages by going to the Security app and then in the path Block list -> Settings -> Block list SMS -> Block list for keywords .
Once this menu is open, we can enter the most used keywords in advertising or to promote offers via SMS, including:
Click here, Enter here, An offer, Reply YES .
After setting these filters, we will have solved 99% of the problems resulting from spam spread via messages. Obviously, even if we receive "legitimate" messages with one of these keywords, they will be blocked, even if it is highly unlikely that someone will contact us with the SMS of these times (not to mention the difficulty of inserting the keywords within a serious speech used).
To make the filter even more effective we can block messages from strangers by changing the specific filter (in the case of Xiaomi, just move from Allow to Block the entry Messages from strangers ).
Obviously the menus and the items to set the filters are different from phone to phone, in particular in the varied Android world: we carefully search in all the menus to find a match, otherwise we use one of the recommended apps in the second part of the guide to be able to quickly remedy .
On iPhone devices it is not possible to set an SMS filter for keywords as seen on Android devices, but we can still block SMS messages from strangers (more than enough as a blocking strategy, since it is unlikely that spam numbers will be present in the address book) .
To set this type of block we open the Settings app and go to the Messages menu; from here we scroll until we find the item Filter unknown users .
This drastic solution allows you to block spam messages, but also any messages received from new contacts not yet in the address book; if we are looking for something more selective and less drastic, we advise you to try one of the apps recommended in the second part of the guide, so that we can only block advertising messages.
The best apps to block advertising SMS
If our phone does not have an SMS filter or we cannot set it correctly, we can rely on some apps designed for the purpose. With most of them we won't even have to create filters by hand: the numbers and keywords to be blocked are indexed directly within the app, so as to reduce user interactions to the bare minimum.
- Truecaller (Android and iOS): one of the best apps to block unwanted calls and advertising SMS on devices.
- Calls Blacklist (Android): a good app for Android devices that can block SMS via general filters (for example, we can block messages from unknown numbers or previously entered in a list) and block messages via keyword filters, prefix checks and other types of regular expressions.
- Without a doubt one of the best apps for Android, since it can replicate the operation of the filter that we described in the first chapter of the guide.
- SMS Blocker (Android): another good app for Android devices useful for stopping the reception of spam SMS or annoying services. The app allows you to create a list of numbers to be filtered and to block the categories at risk of sending spam (such as messages from numbers not in the address book or anonymous numbers).
- VeroSMS (iOS): if Truecaller is not enough, we can install the VeroSMS app on our iPhone, capable of blocking unwanted messages from unknown numbers and filtering SMS via an advanced indexed keyword system (few in Italian). We can also add our keywords, to make the filter much more effective.
- SMS blocking (iOS): another effective filter to prevent the reception of SMS messages by unknown users or to block only messages containing some keywords; some of the latter already available within the app, but we can integrate them with suitable keywords to block Italian advertisements.
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