A few years ago, browsing the internet became increasingly difficult as web pages incorporated more and more advertisements all over the place. Banners and pop-ups flooded the screen in an increasingly overwhelming way and got in the way of the content that we really wanted to access.
Why Block Ads on the Internet?
One of the main reasons to block ads on the internet is obvious: They are very annoying. Advertising on the internet has reached a point where it is overwhelming and can overwhelm the most patient user experience. In addition, there are a large number of ads that lead to malicious platforms or that are phishing attempts with the aim of stealing your private data or your credit card funds.
Despite this, it is true that there are some websites where it is positive to leave advertising open to contribute to its financing, especially when it comes to supporting creators or independent journalism. The decision, in each case, must always be yours.
What is an ad Blocker?
Ad blockers are essentially programs that block Internet advertising. If you run out of advertising and want to install a free ad blocker, you have a whole series of options that will work well for you. It’s just a matter of choosing the one you like best. This is our particular selection:
1. Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus is presumably the best Chrome promotion blocker. It has millions of downloads and positive ratings and has been around for a decade as an ad blocker. Firefox and Opera are other browsers supported by Adblock Plus, which also includes an option to be reasonably permissive with Internet advertising. After all, our favorite pages are financed by advertising.
With Adblock Plus we have the option to include some pages in a safe list or ‘whitelist’ to allow the display of your ads, provided they are reasonable and that we activate the corresponding option in our ad blocker. YouTube is another platform that benefits from this option, especially when it comes to financing the work of our favorite creators.
2. YouTube Vanced
YouTube Vanced has a few focal points over the official application created by Google. For instance, it is equipped for playing music out of sight, even with the screen off. Nonetheless, one of its qualities is the advertisement blocker.
You may be imagining that what follows is a long tutorial on how to remove ads with Yotube Vanced. Nothing is further from the real world. In this YouTube mod, the advertisement blocker is incorporated and initiated of course. That means that, in order not to see advertising, you have to do absolutely nothing.
YouTube Vanced removes virtually all YouTube ads. For example, those that appear before viewing and all those that break in the middle of the content are blocked completely automatically. However, those ads embedded within the interface are displayed normally.
3. Adguard
Adguard is perhaps the best Android ad blocker, or at least the most popular. It has options to block tracking cookies and even spyware. It is compatible with a wide range of browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge, Yandex and Safari, and also covers the private browser mode It works even when blocking ads on Skype, but to a certain extent it slows down the connection and, Above all, it is sometimes counterproductive because it can block desired content by mistaking it for advertising.
4. uBlock Origin
uBlock Origin is an ad blocker preferred especially by users of a technical profile. It works in Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge and Safari, and has a wide degree of customization in its filters. It is not only capable of filtering banners but also contextual advertising and metric trackers, especially those from Google. However, it does not yet have a mobile app, both for Android and iOS.
5. Adblock
At the time it was the market leader in ad blockers, and it is still one of the most important. Adblock is especially efficient at blocking YouTube ads, as long as you want to. As with Adblock Plus, you have the option to unblock certain ads in order to help fund the websites and creators we like the most. It is an efficient and robust blocker, although it can sometimes be a bit slow, but the most recommended is YouTube Vanced.
6. Adblock Fast
Adblock Fast is an open source, pop-up ad blocker, which in some ways gives it an edge over its competitors. It is one of the fastest blockers and uses the least resources to fulfill its function, but it is also true that, perhaps because it is so recent, there are still many ads that it is not able to detect automatically. However, being open source gives it a potential for improvement that other closed source browsers do not have.
Interesting related article: “What is Online Advertising?”