Correctly disable AdMob ads

I also wanted to give users the ability to disable ads - why force people to see them if they don't want to? and why should you expect people to pay for that option?

Anyway, I outlined how I did this in this article. The article goes into more detail but here's the relevant parts:

The code i use to turn off ads:

private void hideAd() {
    final AdView adLayout = (AdView) findViewById(R.id.adView1);
    runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            adLayout.setEnabled(false);
            adLayout.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        }
    });
}

And to turn them back on (in case anyone was feeling generous)

private void showAd() {
    final AdView adLayout = (AdView) findViewById(R.id.adView1);
    runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            adLayout.setEnabled(true);
            adLayout.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            adLayout.loadAd(new AdRequest());
        }
    });
}

In your layout file (eg, main.xml) :

<LinearLayout 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:id="@+id/adsContainer">

    <com.admob.android.ads.AdView 
        android:id="@+id/admobAds" 
        android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
        android:layout_height="fill_parent" 
        app:backgroundColor="#000000" 
        app:primaryTextColor="#FFFFFF" 
        app:secondaryTextColor="#CCCCCC">

</LinearLayout>

Then in your code (eg, inside a "if" block)

(LinearLayout) adscontainer = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.adsContainer);

View admobAds = (View) findViewById(R.id.admobAds);

adscontainer.removeView(admobAds);

This will "permanently" (for the lifecycle of the app) remove the ads from the layou, which means that there will not be any ads requested.