What is an ad blocker?
These days, a lot of websites have advertisements to financially support them. These websites generate revenue from these third-party advertisers.
However, as an end-user, you may be annoyed by the number of advertisements you find on webpages. It may even slow down your browser because the advertisements can consist of images and there can be multiple of them spread over the page.
An ad blocker can help you get rid of these ads by installing a plug-in inside your webbrowser, such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari.
Advantages of blocking advertisements
- By blocking advertisements, you make your browsing experience a lot quicker. Pages will be smaller in size and resources do not have to be loaded from external sources.
- You will be less distracted by the flashing/pulsing ads that can be moving or changing colour.
- There will be more space for content; for example on news sites.
- While unlikely for reputable advertising networks such as Google's AdWords, there may be spyware contained inside advertisements.
Resources
- AdBlock: AdBlock is a content filtering and ad blocking extension for the Google Chrome, Apple Safari (desktop and mobile), Firefox, Opera, and Microsoft Edge web browsers. AdBlock allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being displayed. It is free to download and use, and it includes optional donations to the developers.