realme will now show ads in ColorOS: Here's how to disable them

Xiaomi made a divisive move in 2018 when it decided to implement ads in MIUI. In fact, rival brand realme even mocked Xiaomi for making this decision.

Now, realme has seemingly swallowed its pride and announced that it will offer ads on its phones too. The smartphone brand made the announcement on its forum, saying that devices with ColorOS 6 and above will offer ads.

“To continue offering more surprises for you and (to) maintain a healthy and sustainable business model, we have introduced commercial content recommendation [a fancy word for ads – ed] in the OS,” read an excerpt of the post.

The team confirmed that ads will appear in the Phone Manager and on the Security Check page after installing new apps. But what if you don’t want to receive ads on your realme phone? The brand offers a simple way to disable them:

1. Tap settings > additional settings > get recommendations
2. Disable the get recommendations toggle

It’s interesting to note that the get recommendations toggle also refers to the Download Management page as one venue for ads. It’s unclear whether this is a third location for ads.

Either way, this is another somewhat embarrassing about-turn made by a smartphone manufacturer in recent years. We previously saw Samsung and Google mock Apple for ditching the headphone port, before they eventually did the same. Google also claimed that a second rear camera was unnecessary before adding one to the Pixel 4.

Nevertheless, realme has made a massive name for itself in the last 18 months due to its extremely competitive prices. So ads are one way to ensure that device pricing stays low, but it’s definitely a silly look to chide Xiaomi for this and then copy them down the line.

We’ve asked realme’s PR agency whether ads are limited to a specific region or if they’ll be rolling out worldwide. We’ll update the article as soon as they get back to us.