I don't use any other messaging app than telegram. Don't have facebook, instagram and so on, so they can't send me any adds. I use Brave for browsing and for social media I only have twitter and Hive. I heard about such situations that you mention about though. The problem with the pandemic measures is that you can't simply enter some stores if you don't have a mask or accept getting your temperature checked, and in some places you probably can't even work no more. With adds you can simply ignore them... although knowing you're being listened to 24/7 is frightening...