Use Mullvad's dns servers https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls#android. Their vpn also has dns blocking capabilities.

On fdroid Dnsnet and Blockads are nice, i also used and help translate Athena.

Used adaway, too but long before 2021. Good alternative is to host a small vps server, install adguard home, use hosts confs as common and then use DoT on a unrooted phone to this vps. GrapheneOS for example.

Or easier, just use a DoT provider with adblock which you trust. Quad9, adguard-dns and so on.

There's a magisk module for this.

This is all I do. It works pretty well. I sometimes have to turn it off briefly to log in to airplane wifi or such.

You also can put the hosts file made for a Linux system into the mounted /system/etc/hosts, the system partition /system can be mounted on /mnt or /mnt/system too.

As you have root, or with just a custom recovery, you can change it, just going to the recovery, using adb in there and mounting the system partition as rw, then moving the hosts file to the mounted expected location.

I use controld.com DNS over TLS. They have a free ad blocking and malware blocking DNS that works incredibly well.

I use DNSnet on my phone, which has the benefit of not requiring root

I use ublock origin for my browser and use Mullvad DNS with content blockers. I don't know what VPN you use but as long as you can set your own DNS then Mullvad servers should work.

If your router allows you to set the DNS server you can block ads network wide.

https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

https://nextdns.io/

Does anyone know if this DNS adblocker is safe to use? I tested it briefly and it seems to work as well as rooted AdAway