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Introduction

AdBlock Plus- one of the most popular ad blocking tools. Extension for Chrome browsers, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer blocks almost all forms of advertising - banners, pop-ups, advertising while watching videos on YouTube and similar sites. You can block ads on tablets and phones if they have the Android operating system installed.

Advantages of AdBlock Plus:

• ease of installation and configuration;
• easy to turn on and off;
• you can block social media buttons to speed up page loading;
• It is possible to block malicious sites (an additional obstacle to viruses).

Flaws:

• outdated computers will become slower to open websites (the load on the processor will increase);
• Standard settings allow some advertising to be displayed.

By the way, due to the fact that the authors of AdBlock Plus lead White list advertising, where you can add money, some large advertisers (Google, Microsoft and French publishers) intend to sue Eyeo, the company that developed AdBlock Plus. At the time of writing this article, it is unclear how events will develop. Let's hope that nothing will change for users and any advertising can always be turned off.

Where to download the browser add-on

AdBlock Plus exists as extensions for different browsers:

One of these icons is familiar to you, isn't it?

To download and install the extension for your browser, follow one of the links (each browser has its own page): Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser.

After installation, you will be prompted to enable additional filters:

Mark everything - you won't go wrong. There will be no "OK" button - just close the page.

Then go to the AdBlock Plus settings and uncheck the item "Allow some unobtrusive advertising." You don't know how to go to settings? Everything is very simple:

• IN Google Chrome menu button on the right - Additional tools - Extensions - in the “AdBlock Plus” item, the “Options” link.
• IN Mozilla Firefox- menu button - Add-ons - Extensions - Settings.
• The same is true in other browsers.

How to block ads on tablets and phones

If you know what Root is, feel free to read on. If not, study it. This is a prerequisite for complete ad blocking.

You can install the AdBlock Plus program and set up the Internet according to the instructions, but without root rights, ad blocking will be incomplete.

The best option is to install AdBlock Plus, allow the program root rights (then the program will make all the settings itself, without user intervention), then install AdAway and download blocking lists from there. The combined use of these two programs will save you from advertising not only on website pages, but also in applications and games.

Alternatives to AdBlock Plus

The Adguard add-on is initially installed in Yandex Browser. The paid version can filter ads in absolutely any browser.

A popular extension is AdBlock Edge, which copies later removed functions of one of the older versions of AdBlock Plus.

What to choose is up to you. The extensions use similar lists of banner blocking rules, but the page processing algorithms are different. For some people, sites take a long time to load because of AdBlock Plus, but Adguard doesn’t interfere at all. Try, choose - the choice is rich.

The Internet is replete with advertising, the methods of display of which are becoming more and more aggressive. Animated gifs and flash, individual frames and pop-up windows are just a few things. Phishing redirects, Trojans and hidden miners that extract cryptocurrency when visiting sites are becoming increasingly common. Browser extensions help protect the user from them, but not all blockers have proven to be honest and effective.

In today's article we will talk about the evolution of ad blockers, how and from what they make money. We will choose the best ad blocker and fight hidden mining and content blockers.

How to block ads and harmful content

Modern web development tools help not only to create cool web services, but also to get rich through not entirely legal methods. Intrusive advertising, changing browser settings, JS miners hidden in the code of pages - all these are consequences of the endless pursuit of profit.

You can combat this on the user side using filtering. In the simplest case, known resources with false advertising, phishing sites and other network junk are simply added to the hosts file, where they are hardwired to be redirected to the local host instead of a remote IP address with a dubious reputation.

The advantage of this method is that it does not depend on the browser used. Localhost is the same for all programs, and it can be used in any modern operating system. For example, the open source AdAway program allows you to rid a rooted device with Android 4.1 and later from advertising.

Another popular option is to use browser extensions that filter content. Among such anti-advertising fighters, AdBlock and its analogues have gained great popularity.

The most annoying advertisements began to be filtered out at the browser level. By default, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge block pop-ups. Also, browsers began to block Flash a long time ago, since they are often used to track user activity, and Flash Player is riddled with security holes.

Since version 53, Chrome first tries to load the non-Flash version of the page, and other developers have started doing the same. Safari, starting with version 11, prevents videos from automatically playing on a page. And such functions are becoming more and more common. Therefore, before installing any blocker, open your browser settings. Some of the annoying nonsense can be hidden using built-in tools.

Why AdBlock is not the best ad blocker

Many people confuse AdBlock and Adblock Plus, considering them to be the second advanced version of the first. In reality, the history of their creation is much more complicated. Here is how it was…

The first version of the extension, called AdBlock for Firefox, was written by Henrik Aasted Sørensen in 2002. As you might guess, it only worked in Firefox. Due to the limitations of the browser engine, AdBlock for Firefox struggled with insertion of advertisements, and the interface was rather poor. A couple of years later, the Adblock Plus fork appeared, in which many things were improved. Partly because of this, development of the original AdBlock for Firefox stopped in 2006.

After a three-year lull, another developer, Michael Gundlach, used the developments of Adblock Plus, took the name of the original project AdBlock and released his version of the ad blocker in 2009.

The new AdBlock is a fork of a fork that has little in common with its predecessor of the same name. It was written as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge. Among the advantages of this add-on are versatility, a completely redesigned interface and the ability to use Adblock Plus lists that match the format. However, not all innovations were to the taste of users and site owners.

Website "Echo of Moscow". Display without blockers

Do you see the difference? I don’t see it either, but the AdBlock counter shows that it is there!

At the same time, on the RenTV website (yes, we specially selected the most “delicious” pages) the picture is different. If you access it without AdBlock, you can get psychological trauma. There will be so many advertisements that it won’t fit on one screenshot.

As soon as AdBlock is enabled, entire strips are cut out and the page is compressed vertically several times, but some advertising still remains.

Ad blockers as a source of income

Millions of dollars in budgets are associated with advertising, and a logical question arises: why do people write AdBlock clones and then spend years supporting these projects? It is unlikely that the authors are driven solely by altruistic considerations. Blocking ads may simply be more profitable than displaying them. According to Quora users, AdBlock brought the developer from 6 to 25 million dollars annually only through voluntary donations to support it.

Fundraising

How much was actually collected under the freemium donation scheme is not officially reported. However, technically, shady monetization methods are also possible here. For example, the new AdBlock can not only block ads, but also replace cut out banners with anything. In 2012, Gundlach began replacing them with photographs of smiling cats (this experiment was explained as a prolonged April Fool's prank), and in 2016, instead of banners, links to articles about Snowden and other Amnesty International propaganda appeared. As they say, your advertisement could be here.

Currently, Gundlach has stepped away from development, and AdBlock development is led by Gabriel Cubbage and Antoine Boegler. The details of this transaction were not officially announced, but there have been talks about the sale of AdBlock for a significant amount since 2015. At the same time, AdBlock uses volunteer labor. Dozens of people continue to make translations for free and help improve the product.

Adblock Plus ad blocker

Today, the Adblock Plus extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge browsers. It is one of the most popular ad blockers with over 100 million downloads. It can selectively filter ads (including videos), disable social network buttons, prevent transition to phishing sites and protect the user from surveillance through counters and advertising blocks. However, it also requests an impressive set of permissions. Much more than analogues.

Allow Adblock Plus everything

Adblock Plus is distributed free of charge under the GPLv3 license, but this does not mean that it does not bring profit to its owners. It’s just that the developers of this fork have slightly different approaches to monetization.

Eyeo, a company created to promote the blocker, relies on whitelists. They are enabled by default and contain rules that allow the display of "some intrusive advertising».

Since 2011, Eyeo has been interacting with advertisers through the AAP - Acceptable Ads Platform. “Acceptable” ads may also appear in place of the “unacceptable” ones that are cut out.

Adblock Plus developers openly enter into contracts with advertising networks that want to add their content to whitelists. Officially, they must undergo verification and ensure that their advertising meets the eligibility criteria, but these criteria are determined by Eyeo itself. Of course, frankly intrusive advertising is unlikely to pass moderation even for a large reward. A long-term reputation is simply worth more than a one-time profit.

Some website owners consider the practice of selectively blocking ads and replacing them with “correct” ones to be an unfair competition scheme. Instead of participating in the AAP program, they file lawsuits and sometimes even win. For example, the German publishing house Axel Springer obtained through the court a free addition of its magazines to the Adblock Plus white list.

In our test, Adblock Plus performed on par with other participants, regularly cutting out ads. However, some sites simply refused to load until we disabled it.

Login is prohibited with Adblock Plus!

How filter lists are created

All blockers use open lists of unsafe sites and sources of annoying advertising. They are updated by different organizations, each of which is guided by its own criteria for a ban.

Typically, a site or its individual component receives a “black mark” after user complaints about annoying advertising or fraud. A site is considered potentially dangerous when it is targeted by a cloud system antivirus scan. For example, such as Google Safebrowsing or Norton Safe Web.

List of popular blacklists with their brief description available . They overlap, so before using them they need to be combined, cleared of duplicate entries. AdAway and modern blockers do this automatically. It is acceptable to use any number of lists, as long as their format matches.

It is much more important to take into account regional characteristics. For example, lists of annoying advertisements that bother web surfers in Argentina are unlikely to be relevant to users from Russia. In practice, it turns out to be more effective to use default regional lists and add your own individual filters to them than to try to immediately attach as many ready-made ones as possible.

Alternatives to AdBlock

In addition to the old-new AdBlock and its fork with the Plus subscript, there are a lot of other ad blockers, but mostly these are highly specialized add-ons or just crafts that are much inferior in functionality. However, there are also pleasant exceptions.

uBlock Origin ad blocker

In my opinion, uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill deserves special mention. It uses more filters, but manages to use fewer system resources than Adblock Plus. Here are the developer's own tests confirming the quality of the code.

uBlock Origin is very highly configurable. I have not seen more detailed settings in any other blocker. Rules for filtering regular and annoying advertising, fraudulent and malicious sites, regional and universal lists are loaded in separate lists. Additional lists also block tracking components of sites, taking care of privacy.

Big choice subscriptions

In addition, uBlock Origin allows you to separately configure the disabling of pop-ups, blocking the download of large media files to reduce traffic, and the use of “cosmetic filters”. Essentially, these are style sheets, without which empty rectangles would be displayed instead of cut-out elements. They relay the page on the fly, making it more compact by moving the main content to replace the removed advertisement. Other blockers have similar features, but in my experience, uBlock Origin works best.

It’s easy to set your own settings for each site, and it’s also easy to disable uBlock Origin completely or selectively - for individual pages site. It’s even easier to allow or deny access to certain third-party sites. To do this, just click on the list of blocked elements on the current page.

Setting rules on the fly

uBlock Origin also has a white list. By default, add-on sources and a behind-the-scene component are added to it. So uBlock marks all HTTP requests that cannot be associated with some specific tab browser. Such requests include automatic updates the browser itself and its add-ons, search suggestions and other service traffic.

If uBlock Origin skipped the ads or you simply don’t want to see some typical fragment of a web page, you can set your own blocking rule. To do this, you need to go into the erase mode and click on what you don’t like.

Mash mode

This way I easily removed messages and video inserts on websites - not advertising, but simply distracting.

Selecting an item to delete

Advanced uBlock settings become available after checking the “I - advanced user" After this, dynamic content filtering mode is activated, which is aimed primarily at blocking cross-site requests in order to increase privacy and security.

uBlock Origin - settings for advanced users

Since version 1.1.0.0 uBlock Origin supports cloud synchronization of settings via Firefox Sync or Google account. With its help, all filtering rules configured on one device can be easily exported to others. You can also use the settings backup function for these purposes.

Saving filtering settings

AdGuard ad blocker

When there were no browser extensions yet, I used the AtGuard software firewall. In the nineties, on a dial-up connection, it was a real salvation, as it effectively reduced the amount of traffic. AtGuard did not fight advertising specifically, but was able to “freeze” GIF animation, block scripts and ActiveX components. This not only added comfort, but also greatly helped to avoid infection.

Much has changed since then, and today there are two different products under the similar name AdGuard: a free browser add-on authored by Andrey Meshkov and a paid cross-platform firewall created by his own company AdGuard Software.

In this article we will look at the browser extension “AdGuard Anti-banner”. It is free and open source. In addition to regular and intrusive advertising, Anti-Banner can block advertising videos on YouTube and other sites, as well as social network widgets.

“AdGuard Anti-banner” is also interesting because it not only cuts out advertising, but also prevents the installation of Spyware and Adware. At the same time, he himself advertises full version AdGuard ( separate application), whose default installer tries to stuff the system with dubious partner software - in particular, Yandex. I reflexively cleared the checkboxes before taking the screenshot.
A little bit of Yandex goes a long way

Additionally, AdGuard Anti-Banner blocks almost all systems for tracking user actions on the Internet and checks visited sites against a database of malicious and phishing ones.

It has a whitelist, and by default it is empty. There is a fun “invert white list” feature in the settings. Then advertising will be allowed everywhere except the marked sites.

In general, I had extremely pleasant impressions of the work of AdGuard Anti-banner, but purely subjectively, using uBlock Origin seemed much more convenient.

Ad blockers against hidden miners.

Recently, many sites have appeared (JS miners), which are launched hidden when pages are visited, regardless of user actions. Moreover, in most cases this turned out to be a surprise for site owners. Someone quietly infected popular web pages and forced them to mine cryptocurrency on all computers and mobile devices visitors.

Since September 2017, Adblock Plus has added a feature to ban hidden mining scripts. Technically it's just another filter like *coinhive.min.js, so you can manually turn any custom blocker into an "anti-miner". Moreover, in addition to Coinhive, there are many other scripts for online mining. Their list can be found in the description of add-ons such as Mining Blocker or NoMiner.

PayWall: disable your ad blocker or leave

Surely you have often seen requests to disable AdBlock and its analogues on various sites. At some point, these requests turned into demands. Some web pages now hide their content until you whitelist them. This phenomenon is called adwall by analogy with paywall - restricting the display of content only to paid subscribers.

Let's take forbes.com for example. If you go to it without blockers, then advertising will start popping up even when loading. Next, it will be displayed on every page in priority places. For example, at the top, moving article titles.

If you have some kind of blocker installed, then with a high probability you will simply be blocked from viewing the site. This behavior is increasingly common on large Western websites, especially those related to finance and business. The expectation is that a decent person, who for some reason has Adblock Plus, will simply add the site to the white list and move on.

Blocker for ad blockers

A separate extension, IsraBlock, hides requests to disable AdBlock and its analogues from web pages.

Example of how IsraBlock works

The latest version of IsraBlock 0.0.35 works much better in Chrome than in Firefox. If the version for Chrome allows you to set advanced settings, then in the add-on for Firefox settings not at all.

Currently, development of IsraBlock is suspended, but it still works properly.

What is the answer to main question? 42!

In our test, uBlock Origin and AdGuard Antibanner easily overcame the adwall on Forbes.com. No requirements to disable AdBlock when visiting this site appeared with them, but advertising elements were carefully cut from the page content.

Forbes website when visiting with AdGuard

Modern web development tools help not only to create cool web services, but also to get rich through not entirely legal methods. Intrusive advertising, changing browser settings, JS miners hidden in the code of pages - all these are consequences of the endless pursuit of profit.

You can combat this on the user side using filtering. In the simplest case, known resources with false advertising, phishing sites and other network junk are simply added to the hosts file, where they are hardwired to be redirected to the local host instead of a remote IP address with a dubious reputation.

The advantage of this method is that it does not depend on the browser used. Localhost is the same for all programs, and it can be used in any modern operating system. For example, the open source AdAway program allows you to rid a rooted device with Android 4.1 and later from advertising.

Another popular option is to use browser extensions that filter content. Among such anti-advertising fighters, AdBlock and its analogues have gained great popularity.

Why AdBlock is no longer a cake

Many people confuse AdBlock and Adblock Plus, considering them to be the second advanced version of the first. In reality, the history of their creation is much more complicated. Here is how it was…

The first version of the extension, called AdBlock for Firefox, was written by Henrik Aasted Sørensen in 2002. As you might guess, it only worked in Firefox. Due to the limitations of the browser engine, AdBlock for Firefox struggled with insertion of advertisements, and the interface was rather poor. A couple of years later, the Adblock Plus fork appeared, in which many things were improved. Partly because of this, development of the original AdBlock for Firefox stopped in 2006.

After a three-year lull, another developer, Michael Gundlach, used the developments of Adblock Plus, took the name of the original project AdBlock and released his version of the ad blocker in 2009.

The new AdBlock is a fork of a fork that has little in common with its predecessor of the same name. It was written as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge. Among the advantages of this add-on are versatility, a completely redesigned interface and the ability to use Adblock Plus lists that match the format. However, not all innovations were to the taste of users and site owners.

Do you see the difference? I don’t see it either, but the AdBlock counter shows that it is there!

At the same time, on the RenTV website (yes, we specially selected the most “delicious” pages) the picture is different. If you access it without AdBlock, you can get psychological trauma. There will be so many advertisements that it won’t fit on one screenshot.

As soon as AdBlock is enabled, entire strips are cut out and the page is compressed vertically several times, but some advertising still remains.

Banning advertising as a source of income

Millions of dollars in budgets are associated with advertising, and a logical question arises: why do people write AdBlock clones and then spend years supporting these projects? It is unlikely that the authors are driven solely by altruistic considerations. Blocking ads may simply be more profitable than displaying them. According to Quora users, AdBlock brought the developer from 6 to 25 million dollars annually only through voluntary donations to support it.

How much was actually collected under the freemium donation scheme is not officially reported. However, technically, shady monetization methods are also possible here. For example, the new AdBlock can not only block ads, but also replace cut out banners with anything. In 2012, Gundlach began replacing them with photographs of smiling cats (this experiment was explained as a prolonged April Fool's prank), and in 2016, instead of banners, links to articles about Snowden and other Amnesty International propaganda appeared. As they say, your advertisement could be here.

Currently, Gundlach has stepped away from development, and AdBlock development is led by Gabriel Cubbage and Antoine Boegler. The details of this transaction were not officially announced, but there have been talks about the sale of AdBlock for a significant amount since 2015. At the same time, AdBlock uses volunteer labor. Dozens of people continue to make translations for free and help improve the product.

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Below is a list of the best free ad blockers. But none of them is perfect, so it is most effective to use several solutions at once.

Types of Advertising

When choosing the best blockers, we adhered to the following criteria:

• Completely free;
• Good user ratings;
• No need to register account for use;
• Recently updated (within the last 12 months);
• Implementation as a plugin for at least one browser or operating system;
• Blocks “media ads” (pop-ups, banners, videos, static images, wallpapers, text ads);
• Blocks advertisements in videos (for example, on YouTube).

To test blockers, we used several sites with various types advertisements. Among them: Forbes.com, Fark.com, YouTube and OrlandoSentinel.com.
On Orlando Sentinel, we found aggressive ad formats that most ad blockers cannot block. In fact, only a few of them effectively blocked all ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel.

We've tested each of these free tools based on the criteria provided and given them a rating. In addition, the ad blockers listed below, with the exception of Stend Fair Adblocker, are open source software. source code.

The best ad blockers - browser plugins and applications

The best option for blocking ads is to install a specialized plugin or use a browser with a built-in blocker. They interact with sites much more accurately than standalone programs running in the background on your computer.

Stands Fair AdBlocker
It is only available for the Google Chrome browser. With this plugin you can block all types of advertising. But it is only available as an add-on for the Google Chrome browser.
Stands Fair AdBlocker is not designed to block ad blocks, although it can be used for that as well. The development company believes in honest advertising and rewards users who create white lists of ads shown on sites.

Luckily, Stands does a great job of blocking all other ads. Including the aggressive advertising formats shown on the Orlando Sentinel. Plus display ads, autoplay videos, and YouTube ads.

Rating: 7/7

Main advantages: Block ads on Facebook and Google search.

Works with: Google Chrome

AdBuard AdBlock
AdGuard AdBlock was able to block all types of ads. But the biggest disadvantage of this ad blocker is that all the features are only available in the premium version. However, the difference between blocker versions is explained only in the reference documentation.

Many users have rated AdBuard AdBlock positively. It has been downloaded over 4 million times and received high ratings.
When we tested it, it was one of the ad blockers that not only effectively blocked ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel website, but also blocked advertising frames with the word “advertisement.”

Rating: 7/7

Main advantages: Possibility to convert whitelist to blacklist.

Works with: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Yandex.Browser.

Opera Browser
One of the fastest and most productive browsers. He was one of the first to offer his users a built-in ad blocker.

Once you enable the ad blocker in your settings, it blocks almost every ad you come across. But the browser was unable to block interstitial ads on the Forbes website (blocks of quotes that appear before articles). Most other ad units were blocked.
In addition, the Opera ad blocker successfully blocked advertisements shown on the Orlando Sentinel.

Rating: 7/7

Main advantages: built into a popular browser, simple work with a white list.

Works: with Opera.

Adblock Plus
Is the most popular software to block ads with over 10 million downloads in just Google browser Chrome. This is a free and open source project. Adblock Plus is the basis for many other free blockers.

By default, Adblock Plus is designed to only block ads that are considered intrusive or potentially harmful. Therefore, it requires additional configuration.
If you want to block most ads (including auto-playing videos), you'll need to disable the "Allow some non-intrusive ads" option in Settings. But even in this case, ABP does not block everything.

Adblock Plus was one of the tools that failed to do anything about the ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel. Unfortunately, even the “element blocking” function could not help. ABP is good and popular, but far from perfect.

Rating: 6.5 / 7

Main advantages: presence of anti-blocking filter.

Works with: Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, iOS, Android.

uBlock AdBlocker Plus
Unlike other tools, uBlock AdBlocker Plus is easy to use. However, there are some things that the developer could improve. For example, the blocker's website is just a page with the name of the plugin and no additional information.

Block AdBlocker Plus effectively blocks most advertisements, but still lets some through. For example, it did not block the automatic playback of advertising on one of the sites.

When some advertisements were loading, I used the "element blocking" feature to block specific advertisements on the webpage. For example, on the Orlando Sentinel, element blocking worked fine. And its use did not lead to a page reload (as was the case with other ad blockers).

Rating: 6.5 / 7

Main advantages: easy to use, ability to lock elements.

Works with: Google Chrome.

uBlock Plus Adblocker
The biggest drawback of this plugin is that it has a clunky interface. There are several settings that are activated using switches. But most of the work involves digging into the parameters. However, uBlock Plus Adblocker effectively blocked all advertisements, including autoplay videos.

The main advantage of the plugin is the presence of a large library of third-party filters. The tool also includes advanced custom settings, which allow you to create your own content filters.
During testing, uBlock Plus Adblocker blocked most advertisements. But I couldn't do anything about the banner ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel.

Rating: 6.5 / 7

Main advantages: filters elements and unsafe advertisements.

Works with: Google Chrome.

AdBlocker Genesis Plus
If you have used uBlock Origin or AdBlock Plus, this plugin is for you. AdBlocker Genesis Plus is a fork of other popular plugins. It uses the same basic source code, but implements many of its own features.

Its user interface is slightly different, but the ad blocking functionality is the same. The plugin's developer claims to have specifically removed tracking code from the uBlock/AdBlock Plus source code to ensure greater privacy.

This ad blocker has a high rating (4.34 out of 5) based on over 100,000 ratings. But I found that Genesis Plus doesn't block all ads. The plugin blocked simple display ads on one site (Fark.com), but was unable to block a display ad on the Orlando Sentinel.

Rating: 6/7

Main advantages: no tracking code, simple button“white list”, “block elements” button.

Works with: Google Chrome.

Adblock Ultimate
Open source project. The tool allows you to deal with most advertisements. In testing, it was able to block YouTube ads and most display ads on websites. This ad blocker has high ratings: 4.84 out of 5 from Google users Chrome and over 600,000 installations.

The plugin was unable to handle the ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel. It did not block ads broadcast on this site at all. But for those who only need to cut out most of the ads, this is a good option. Unfortunately, the plugin has not been updated for over a year. Because of this, his rating was lowered.

Rating: 6/7

Main advantages: Quick “item blocking” feature that allows you to instantly block any advertisements.

Works with: Google Chrome.

NoScript

This tool is only suitable for Firefox and is more of a script blocker than an ad blocker. NoScript prevents all types of scripts from loading on web pages: JavaScript, Java, Flash and others. You can allow certain types of scripts to be loaded. But by default, the tool applies a fairly “hard” filter.

As a result of its work, most display ads are blocked. This includes aggressive advertising on the Orlando Sentinel, which other tools could not cope with. But NoScript does not block ads in videos at all.

Rating: 5.5/7

Main advantages: Complete blocking of scripts.

Works with: Firefox.

Why aren't Privacy Badger and Ghostery on this list?

You may have heard about the popular ad blockers Privacy Badger and Ghostery. The fact is that these plugins are not designed to block ads, but to refuse ads and other elements of sites that violate user privacy. As a result, they both block certain types of advertisements. But first and foremost, the tools are aimed at protecting privacy.

Oh, advertising, advertising, how boring we are with it. On the street, in newspapers, on television and, of course, on the Internet. If on a computer or any other device with a large display it is still appropriate, although it is confusing, then an advertising banner on half the screen of a smartphone or tablet is difficult to endure. And then there are the banners in games – a nightmare, and that’s all. How to deal with them on mobile devices? Our review of ad blockers for gadgets will tell you about this. Android based OS.

advertising

So, let's take a look at the advertising “problem” from the inside. Development and content of a website, creation and support of one or another application - all this is work that must be paid. Not all developers can do paid versions programs, and not all users are ready to buy them. The situation will be similar with websites; not all users agree to visit their favorite website with a paid subscription. There is only one thing left to do - place ads (whether these are ad impressions or clicks on it does not matter here). And for any action there is correspondingly a reaction. In our case, ad blockers.

We have selected three of the most popular, working and relevant applications. AdAway is an ad blocker by preventing access to advertising addresses. Both AdFree and Adblock Plus work in a similar way. They differ in authors, interface and functions, but their operating principle is the same.

It is worth noting that we in no way encourage the use of this kind of programs, because without money received for advertising, the normal life of most (if not all) sites is impossible. However, in some cases, such applications can help out, and tell us about them at least with technical point vision won't hurt.

advertising

Blocking ads is easy: AdAway

Acquaintance

The application is simplified to the minimum, but is designed for both novice users and experts. Uploading “corrections” and modifying the hosts file itself is as simple as possible. The program also has interesting functions, they are hidden in the depths and will come in handy if necessary.

The main advantages of the AdAway application:

• Ease of use.
• Automatic check for updates.
• Search for unblocked advertising.
• A detailed description of the essence of the application, help, and so on.
• Russian localization.

Flaws:

• Necessary presence of Root rights and S-ON (for HTC devices).

Beginning of work

When launched for the first time, the AdAway application will ask for superuser rights. This is required to access and change system partition, namely, editing the hosts file. If your gadget does not have Root rights, the application will not work.

The program interface is as simple as possible, all points are signed and explained in as much detail as possible. AdAway is completely Russified.

Click on the “Download files and apply ad blocking” button. This way we load advertising addresses - hosts, and then integrate them into the system.

advertising

The app will then prompt you to restart your device. You need to agree to this command because “Java in Android has its own internal DNS cache. operating system will use the updated hosts file immediately, but we must reboot the device to recreate the DNS cache in Java."

This is exactly how it is explained in reference information programs. It’s intelligible and understandable, and I don’t need to explain anything.

After rebooting, the application will begin to function at full capacity. Advertising is blocked both in the browser and in applications. We'll talk about how well this works next.

advertising

If we need to restore the display of advertising, click on the “Disable ad blocking” button, after which the original structure of the hosts file is restored. By the way, when uninstalling the utility, you should use this function.

Settings

AdAway is practically not replete with settings. Of the functions that deserve to be listed, we can note automatic check updating advertising addresses. The database can only be updated when connected to Wi-Fi networks, so as not to waste precious megabytes of mobile traffic.

advertising

We can then adjust the host list sources, which is convenient. In addition to standard sources, you can add your own to be sure to block all advertising. You can also unblock this or that resource if unwanted advertising suddenly stops coming from there.

By the way, we can specify “our” path to hosts file, which is very convenient, then the original will remain untouched.

We also have access to the DNS query log. This will allow you to block ads in those applications where “ standard means"It didn't work. That is, using this tool it will be possible to analyze application requests for advertising and, if necessary, block them.

advertising

Using the Adware Scanner, you can find applications that use the Airpush notification system, which may display advertisements. Unfortunately, this can only be fixed by deleting the applications themselves.

This is where we finished reviewing all the functions of the application called AdAway.

Testing

advertising

For clear example to work with the program, we took several sites where there are various types of advertising. So, it is blocked, but not everywhere, despite the fact that the list of advertising hosts has been updated to the latest (at the time of writing this review).

I will note one point concerning not only this application, but also the others. In the Google Chrome browser, Google ads will be displayed in traffic compression mode. And since in this mode Since all advertising comes in compressed form (possibly through an encrypted channel, there is no exact data) and is unpacked on the device itself, no specialized application can block it.

Conclusions on AdAway

AdAway is a fairly typical ad blocker. It is easy to use, can automatically update a database of advertising addresses, filter DNS requests, scan applications for Airpush notifications, and has several other functions.