Jump to content

Ad blocking

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ad blocking or ad filtering is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a web browser, an application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or other methods or browsers with inside blocking.

History

[edit]

The first ad blocker was Internet Fast Forward, a plugin for the Netscape Navigator browser, developed by PrivNet and released in 1996.[1][2] The AdBlock extension for Firefox was developed in 2002, with Adblock Plus being released in 2006.[3] uBlock Origin, originally called "uBlock", was first released in 2014.[4]

Technologies and native countermeasures

[edit]

Online advertising exists in a variety of forms, including web banners, pictures, animations, embedded audio and video, text, or pop-up windows, and can even employ audio and video autoplay. Many browsers offer some ways to remove or alter advertisements: either by targeting technologies that are used to deliver ads (such as embedded content delivered through browser plug-ins or via HTML5), targeting URLs that are the source of ads, or targeting behaviors characteristic of ads (such as the use of HTML5 AutoPlay of both audio and video).

Prevalence

[edit]

Use of mobile and desktop ad blocking software designed to remove traditional advertising grew by 41% worldwide and by 48% in the U.S. between Q2 2014 and Q2 2015.[5] As of Q2 2015, 45 million Americans were using ad blockers.[5] In a survey research study released Q2 2016, Met Facts reported 72 million Americans, 12.8 million adults in the UK, and 13.2 million adults in France were using ad blockers on their PCs, smartphones, or tablet computers. In March 2016, the Internet Advertising Bureau reported that UK ad blocking was already at 22% among people over 18 years old.[6][7]

As of 2021, 27% of US Internet users used ad blocking software, a trend that has been increasing since 2014.[8]

Among technical audiences the rate of blocking reached 58% as of 2021.[9]

Benefits

[edit]

For users, benefits of ad blocking software include quicker loading and cleaner looking web pages with fewer distractions,[10][11][12] protection from malvertising,[13][14][15] stopping intrusive actions from ads,[16][17] reducing the amount of data downloaded by the user,[18][19] lower power consumption,[20][21] privacy benefits gained through the exclusion of web tracking,[22] and preventing undesirable websites from making ad revenue out of the user's visit.[citation needed]

Publishers and their representative trade bodies, on the other hand, argue that web ads provide revenue to website owners, which enable the website owners to create or otherwise purchase content for the website. Publishers state that the prevalent use of ad blocking software and devices could adversely affect website owner revenue.[23]

User experience

[edit]

Ad blocking software may have other benefits to users' quality of life, as it decreases Internet users' exposure to advertising and marketing industries, which promote the purchase of numerous consumer products and services that are potentially harmful or unhealthy[24][25] and on creating the urge to buy immediately.[26][27] The average person sees more than 5000 advertisements daily, many of which are from online sources.[28]

Unwanted advertising can also harm the advertisers themselves if users become annoyed by the ads. Irritated users might make a conscious effort to avoid the goods and services of firms which are using annoying "pop-up" ads which block the Web content the user is trying to view.[29] For users not interested in making purchases, the blocking of ads can also save time. Any ad that appears on a website exerts a toll on the user's "attention budget" since each ad enters the user's field of view and must either be consciously ignored or closed, or dealt with in some other way. A user who is strongly focused on reading solely the content that they are seeking likely has no desire to be diverted by advertisements that seek to sell unneeded or unwanted goods and services.[29] In contrast, users who are actively seeking items to purchase, might appreciate advertising, in particular targeted ads.[30]

Security

[edit]

Another important aspect is improving security; online advertising subjects users to a higher risk of infecting their devices with computer viruses than surfing pornography websites.[31] In a high-profile case, the malware was distributed through advertisements provided to YouTube by a malicious customer of Google's Doubleclick.[32][33] In August 2015, a 0-day exploit in the Firefox browser was discovered in an advertisement on a website.[34] When Forbes required users to disable ad blocking before viewing their website, those users were immediately served with pop-under malware.[35] The Australian Signals Directorate recommends individuals and organizations block advertisements to improve their information security posture and mitigate potential malvertising attacks and machine compromise.[36] The information security firm Webroot also notes employing ad blockers provides effective countermeasures against malvertising campaigns for less technically sophisticated computer users.[37] Ad blocking is recommended by the FBI to prevent online scams.[38]

Monetary

[edit]

Ad blocking reduces page load time and saves bandwidth for the users. Users who pay for total transferred bandwidth ("capped" or pay-for-usage connections) including most mobile users worldwide have a direct financial benefit from filtering an ad before it is loaded. Using an ad blocker is a common method of improving internet speeds.[39] Analysis of the 200 most popular news sites (as ranked by Alexa) in 2015 showed that Mozilla Firefox Tracking Protection led to a 39% reduction in data usage and a 44% median reduction in page load time.[40] According to research performed by The New York Times, ad blockers reduced data consumption and sped upload time by more than half on 50 news sites, including The New York Times itself. Journalists concluded that "visiting the home page of Boston.com (the site with most ad data in the study) every day for a month would cost the equivalent of about $9.50 in data usage just for the ads".[41]

It is a known problem with most web browsers, including Firefox, that restoring sessions often plays multiple embedded ads at once.[42] However, this annoyance can easily be averted simply by setting the web browser to clear all cookies and browsing-history information each time the browser software is closed.[citation needed] Another preventive option is to use a script blocker, which enables the user to disable all scripts and then to selectively re-enable certain scripts as desired, in order to determine the role of each script.[citation needed] The user thus can very quickly learn which scripts are truly necessary (from the standpoint of webpage functionality) and consequently which sources of scripts are undesirable, and this insight is helpful in visiting other websites in general.[citation needed] Thus by precisely controlling which scripts are run in each webpage viewed, the user retains full control over what happens on their computer CPU and computer screen.[citation needed]

Methods

[edit]
An ad-blocking browser extension displays a list of rules downloaded from the popular subscriptions Easylist and Fanboy's Annoyances List.

One method of filtering is simply to block (or prevent auto play of) Flash animation or image loading or Microsoft Windows audio and video files. This can be done in most browsers easily and also improves security and privacy. This crude technological method is refined by numerous browser extensions. Every web browser handles this task differently, but, in general, one alters the options, preferences or application extensions to filter specific media types. An additional add-on is usually required to differentiate between ads and non-ads using the same technology, or between wanted and unwanted ads or behaviors.

The more advanced ad-blocking filter software allows fine-grained control of advertisements through features such as blacklists, whitelists, and regular expression filters. Certain security features also have the effect of disabling some ads. Some antivirus software can act as an ad blocker. Filtering by intermediaries such as ISP providers or national governments is increasingly common.

Browser integration

[edit]

As of 2015, many web browsers block unsolicited pop-up ads automatically. Current versions of Konqueror,[43] Microsoft Edge,[44] and Firefox[45][46] also include content filtering support out-of-the-box. Content filtering can be added to Firefox, Chromium-based browsers, Opera, Safari, and other browsers with extensions such as AdBlock, Adblock Plus, and uBlock Origin, and a number of sources provide regularly updated filter lists. Adblock Plus is included in the freeware browser Maxthon from the People's Republic of China by default.[47]

Another method for filtering advertisements uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) rules to hide specific HTML and XHTML elements. This was once handled directly by a browser's user style sheet and custom CSS files. The CSS files employed regular expressions to describe a general advertisement profile. An example CSS selector from the once popular Floppy Moose (2003) style sheet is below.[48] It simply hides anything with a link containing the characters "ad."[49]

A:link[HREF*="ad."]  IMG

Stylesheets are still used to block ads today. However they are almost always used by an ad-blocking extension that combines CSS with other techniques. AdBlock Plus syntax includes CSS selectors which they call "element hiding" rules.[50] The newer uBlock Origin even allows "cosmetic filters" which inject custom CSS declarations.[51] Due to changes in advertising techniques, modern ad-blockers use more specific selectors, more frequently updated selectors, and a greater quantity of selectors. For example, the Floppy Moose style sheet originally contained 40 lines of CSS. In 2022, Easylist contains thousands of CSS selectors. In contrast to the general example above, below is one of the many specific CSS selectors from Easylist (2022).[52]

a[href^="https://topoffers.com/"][href*="/?pid="]

In January 2016, Brave, a free, ad-blocking browser for Mac, PC, Android, and iOS devices was launched. Brave users can optionally enable Brave's own ad network to earn Basic Attention Tokens (BATs), a type of cryptocurrency, which can be sent as micro-payments to publishers.[53]

At the beginning of 2018, Google confirmed that the built-in ad blocker for the Chrome/Chromium browsers would go live on 15 February:[54] this ad blocker only blocks certain ads as specified by the Better Ads Standard[55] (defined by the Coalition for Better Ads, in which Google itself is a board member[56]). This built-in ad blocking mechanism is disputed because it could unfairly benefit Google's advertising itself.[57]

In 2019, both Apple and Google began to make changes to their web browsers' extension systems which encourage the use of declarative content blocking using pre-determined filters processed by the web browser, rather than filters processed at runtime by the extension. Both vendors have imposed limits on the number of entries that may be included in these lists, which have led to (especially in the case of Chrome) allegations that these changes are being made to inhibit the effectiveness of ad blockers.[58][59][60][61]

External programs

[edit]

A number of external software applications offer ad filtering as a primary or additional feature. A traditional solution is to customize an HTTP proxy (or web proxy) to filter content. These programs work by caching and filtering content before it is displayed in a user's browser. This provides an opportunity to remove not only ads but also content that may be offensive, inappropriate, or even malicious (Drive-by download). Popular proxy software which blocks content effectively include Netnanny, Privoxy, Squid, and some content-control software. The main advantage of the method is freedom from implementation limitations (browser, working techniques) and centralization of control (the proxy can be used by many users). Proxies are very good at filtering ads, but they have several limitations compared to browser-based solutions. For proxies, it is difficult to filter Transport Layer Security (SSL) (https://) traffic and full webpage context is not available to the filter. As well, proxies find it difficult to filter JavaScript-generated ad content.

Hosts file and DNS manipulation

[edit]

Most operating systems, even those which are aware of the Domain Name System (DNS), still offer backward compatibility with a locally administered list of foreign hosts. This configuration, for historical reasons, is stored in a flat text file that by default contains very few hostnames and their associated IP addresses. Editing this hosts file is simple and effective because most DNS clients will read the local hosts file before querying a remote DNS server. Storing black-hole entries in the hosts file prevents the browser from accessing an ad server by manipulating the name resolution of the ad server to a local or nonexistent IP address (127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 are typically used for IPv4 addresses). While simple to implement, these methods can be circumvented by advertisers, either by hard-coding, the IP address of the server that hosts the ads (this, in its turn, can be worked around by changing the local routing table by using for example iptables or other blocking firewalls), or by loading the advertisements from the same server that serves the main content; blocking name resolution of this server would also block the useful content of the site.

Using a DNS sinkhole by manipulating the hosts file exploits the fact that most operating systems store a file with IP address, domain name pairs which is consulted by most browsers before using a DNS server to look up a domain name. By assigning the loopback address to each known ad server, the user directs traffic intended to reach each ad server to the local machine or to a virtual black hole of /dev/null or bit bucket.

DNS filtering

[edit]

Advertising can be blocked by using a DNS server which is configured to block access to domains or hostnames which are known to serve ads by spoofing the address.[62] Users can choose to use an already modified DNS server[63][64][65] or set up a dedicated device running adequate software such as a Raspberry Pi running Pi-hole themselves.[66] Manipulating DNS is a widely employed method to manipulate what the end-user sees from the Internet but can also be deployed locally for personal purposes. China runs its own root DNS and the EU has considered the same. Google has required their Google Public DNS be used for some applications on its Android devices. Accordingly, DNS addresses/domains used for advertising may be extremely vulnerable to a broad form of ad substitution whereby a domain that serves ads is entirely swapped out with one serving more local ads to some subset of users. This is especially likely in countries, notably Russia, India and China, where advertisers often refuse to pay for clicks or page views. DNS-level blocking of domains for non-commercial reasons is already common in China.[67]

Recursive Local VPN

[edit]

On Android, apps can run a local VPN connection with its own host filtering ability and DNS address without requiring root access.[68] This approach allows ad blocking app to download ad blocking host files and use them to filter out ad networks throughout the device. AdGuard, Blokada,[69] DNS66,[70] and RethinkDNS[71][72] are few of the popular apps which accomplish ad blocking without root permission.[citation needed] The ad blocking is only active when the local VPN is turned on, and it completely stops when the VPN connection is disconnected.[citation needed] The convenience makes it easy to access content blocked by anti-adblock scripts.[citation needed]

This approach optimizes battery usage, reduces internet slowdown caused by using external DNS or VPN ad blocking and needs overall less configuration.[citation needed]

Hardware devices

[edit]

Devices such as AdTrap[73] or Pi-hole use hardware to block Internet advertising. Based on reviews of AdTrap, this device uses a Linux Kernel running a version of PrivProxy to block ads from video streaming, music streaming, and any web browser,[74] while PiHole acts as a local DNS to block advertisement servers, stopping connected devices from showing most ads. Another such solution is provided for network-level ad blocking for telcos by Israeli startup Shine.[75]

By external parties and internet providers

[edit]

Internet providers, especially mobile operators, frequently offer proxies designed to reduce network traffic. Even when not targeted specifically at ad filtering, these proxy-based arrangements will block many types of advertisements that are too large or bandwidth-consuming, or that are otherwise deemed unsuited for the specific internet connection or target device. Many internet operators block some form of advertisements while at the same time injecting their own ads promoting their services and specials.

Economic consequences for online business

[edit]

Some content providers have argued that widespread ad blocking results in decreased revenue to a website sustained by advertisements[76][77] and e-commerce-based businesses, where this blocking can be detected.[citation needed]

Business models

[edit]

Tools that help block ads have to work on different business models to stay in operation:

  • Free and open source: Several tools work under a FOSS model, powered by community contributions and donations, e.g. uBlock Origin.[78][failed verification]
  • Whitelisting: Some companies maintain a whitelist of websites that allow "acceptable ads" in exchange for a share of ad revenue.[79]
  • Subscription/Upfront: Some companies offer a subscription or upfront payment model for adblocking tools, e.g. Wipr.[80][failed verification]
  • Freemium: Some companies offer some level of service for free while charging for additional features, e.g. AdGuard.[81][failed verification]

Response from publishers

[edit]

Countermeasures

[edit]

Some websites have taken countermeasures against ad blocking software, such as attempting to detect the presence of ad blockers and informing users of their views, or outright preventing users from accessing the content unless they disable the ad blocking software, whitelist the website, or buy an "ad-removal pass". There have been several arguments supporting[82] and opposing[83] the assertion that blocking ads is wrong.[84] Indeed, there is evidence to show that these countermeasures may hurt a website's SEO performance, as users unwilling to turn off their AdBlock may instead go to a competitor's website listed in the search results.[85] Due to the little amount of time the user spends on the website, and the greater time spent on a competitor's, search engines may view the webpage less favourably and reduce its search ranking.[86] The back-and-forth elevation of technologies used for ad-blocking and countering ad-blocking have been equated to an "ad blocking war" or "arms race" between all parties.[87][88]

It has been suggested that in the European Union, the practice of websites scanning for ad blocking software may run afoul of the E-Privacy Directive.[89] This claim was further validated by IAB Europe's guidelines released in June 2016 stating that there indeed may be a legal issue in ad blocker detection.[90] While some anti-blocking stakeholders have tried to refute this[91][92] it seems safe to assume that Publishers should follow the guidelines provided by the main Publisher lobby IAB.

In August 2017, a vendor, Admiral, of such counter-measures issued a demand under section 1201 of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to demand the removal of a domain name associated with their service from an ad-blocking filter list. The vendor argued that the domain constituted a component of a technological protection measure designed to protect a copyrighted work, and thus made it a violation of anti-circumvention law to frustrate access to it.[93][94]

In September 2023, after a period of testing that began in May 2023, the American video hosting site YouTube began launching countermeasures at viewers with adblocker software running when viewing videos. A popup message appears warning the user is breaking the terms of service and may experience blocked viewing after three videos unless they whitelist the site, or purchase YouTube Premium. This sparked extreme controversy and backlash across the YouTube communities.[95][96][97] In October 2023, Irish privacy advocate Alexander Hanff filed a criminal complaint against YouTube due to its ad blocking detection script, which is believed to violate European Union privacy laws.[98] In June 2024, YouTube began experimenting with server-side ad insertion,[99] which consists of embedding ads directly into video streams, making automatic blocking significantly more difficult.[100][101]

Alternatives

[edit]

As of 2015, advertisers and marketers look to involve their brands directly into the entertainment with native advertising and product placement (also known as brand integration or embedded marketing).[102] An example of product placement would be for a soft drink manufacturer to pay a reality TV show producer to have the show's cast and host appear onscreen holding cans of the soft drink.[citation needed] Another common product placement is for an automotive manufacturer to give free cars to the producers of a TV show, in return for the show's producer depicting characters using these vehicles during the show.[citation needed]

Some digital publications turned to their customers for help as a form of tip jar.[citation needed] For example, The Guardian is asking its readers for donations to help offset falling advertising revenue. According to the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, the newspaper gets about the same amount of money from membership and donations as it does from advertising.[103] The newspaper considered preventing readers from accessing its content if usage of ad-blocking software becomes widespread,[104] but so far it keeps the content accessible for readers who employ ad-blockers.[citation needed]

A new service called Scroll, launched in January 2020, worked with several leading website publishers to create a subscription model for ad-free browsing across all supported websites. Users would pay Scroll directly, and portions of the subscription fees are doled out to the websites based on proportional view count.[105]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Claburn, Thomas. "In conversation with Gene Hoffman, co-creator of the internet's first ad blocker". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  2. ^ PrivNet's Internet Fast Forward (IFF) on CNBC, circa 1996. Retrieved 3 February 2023 – via YouTube.
  3. ^ O'Reilly, Lara. "The inventor of Adblock tells us he wrote the code as a 'procrastination project' at university — and he's never made money from it". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  4. ^ "uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker". uBlock Origin. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  5. ^ a b Elmer-DeWitt, Philip (21 September 2015). "Look Who's Driving Adblock Growth". Fortune. Archived from the original on 27 September 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  6. ^ Sweney, Mark (1 March 2016). "More than 9 million Britons now use adblockers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 28 August 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  7. ^ Sweney, Mark (20 April 2016). "Fears of adblocking 'epidemic' as report forecasts almost 15m UK users next year". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  8. ^ "Ad blocker usage in U.S." Statista. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  9. ^ Saric, Marko (31 August 2021). "58% of Hacker News, Reddit and tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics". Plausible Analytics. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  10. ^ Silverstein, Barry (2001). Internet Marketing for Information Technology Companies: Proven Online Techniques to Increase Sales and Profits for Hardware, Software and Networking Companies. Maximum Press. p. 130. ISBN 1885068670. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  11. ^ Brinkman, Martin (17 September 2022). "How to block web fonts to improve privacy". Ghacks Technology News. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  12. ^ Williams, James (16 October 2015). "Why It's OK to Block Ads". Practical Ethics. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  13. ^ Whittaker, Zack (22 December 2022). "Even the FBI says you should use an ad blocker". TechCrunch. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  14. ^ Simonite, Tom. "Are Ad Blockers Needed to Stay Safe Online?". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on 9 November 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  15. ^ "Cyber Criminals Impersonating Brands Using Search Engine Advertisement Services to Defraud Users". Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). 21 December 2022. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
  16. ^ "Abusive experiences". Google Inc. Archived from the original on 21 June 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  17. ^ "Expanding user protections on the web". Chromium Blog. Archived from the original on 1 February 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  18. ^ "Web bloat isn't a knowledge problem". Christian Heilmann. 2 January 2017. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  19. ^ "The Website Obesity Crisis". Idle Words. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  20. ^ "Browser Power Consumption". SecTheory. 1 December 2008. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  21. ^ Pathak, Abhinav; Hu, Y. Charlie; Zhang, Ming. "Fine Grained Energy Accounting on Smartphones with Eprof" (PDF). Microsoft. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  22. ^ Eddy, Max (30 April 2022). "The Best Ad Blockers for 2022". PCMag. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  23. ^ Ghosh, Sudipto (23 October 2017). "OnAudience Report Finds US Publishers Lose over $15.8 Billion Revenue Annually Due to Ad Blocking". MarTech Series. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  24. ^ Della Costa, Chloe (22 May 2017). "7 Tricks Advertisers Use to Manipulate You into Spending More Money". Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  25. ^ Becker, Sam (21 May 2015). "Do You Know Who Spends All Day Thinking About Your Kids?". Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  26. ^ Templeman, Mike (3 June 2014). "10 Marketing Tricks From the Pros". Archived from the original on 31 May 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  27. ^ Charski, Mindy (14 March 2016). "Programmatic Advertising: The Tools, Tips, and Tricks of the Trade". Archived from the original on 10 June 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  28. ^ Johnson, Sheree (29 September 2014). "New Research Sheds Light on Daily Ad Exposures". SJ Insights, LLC. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  29. ^ a b Pujol, Enric; Hohlfeld, Oliver; Feldmann, Anja. "Annoyed Users: Ads and Ad-Block Usage in the Wild" (PDF). ACM SigComm Conference. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  30. ^ Chapin, Andrew (5 April 2016). "Stop Annoying People: How to Create Ads People Want to See". SemRush Blog. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  31. ^ Mlot, Stephanie (1 February 2013). "Online Advertising More Likely to Spread Malware Than Porn". PCMAG. Archived from the original on 11 November 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  32. ^ Eikenberg, Ronald (26 February 2014). "YouTube angeblich als Virenschleuder missbraucht". heise.de (in German). Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  33. ^ Navaraj, McEnroe (21 February 2014). "The Wild Wild Web: YouTube ads serving malware". Bromium Labs. Archived from the original on 23 March 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  34. ^ Veditz, Daniel (6 August 2015). "Firefox exploit found in the wild". Mozilla Security Blog. Archived from the original on 7 August 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  35. ^ Blue, Violet (8 January 2016). "You say advertising, I say block that malware". Engadget. Archived from the original on 25 August 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  36. ^ Australian Signals Directorate. "Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents – Mitigation Details". Commonwealth of Australia. Archived from the original on 2 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019. Block Internet advertisements using web browser software (and web content filtering in the gateway), due to the prevalent threat of adversaries using malicious advertising (malvertising) to compromise the integrity of legitimate websites to compromise visitors to such websites. Some organisations might choose to support selected websites that rely on advertising for revenue by enabling just their ads and potentially risking compromise.
  37. ^ "A Guide to Avoid Being a Crypto-Ransomware Victim" (PDF). Webroot Inc. p. 6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019. While many websites need advertisements to stay online, we have seen more and more popular websites (i.e. millions of visitors a year) infecting customers due to 3rd party hosted adverts on their websites – malvertising. [...] Ad blocker plugins can be installed and left without any user input and are very useful for stopping less technical users from being infected.
  38. ^ Shah, Saqib (22 December 2022). "The FBI is advising people to use an ad blocker as part of an online scam warning". Evening Standard. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  39. ^ "37 Ways To Improve Internet Speed – How To Stop Buffering". Broadband Savvy. 16 July 2018. Archived from the original on 3 December 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  40. ^ Kontaxis, Georgios; Chew, Monica (2015). "Tracking Protection in Firefox For Privacy and Performance" (PDF). IEEE Computer Society's Technical Committee on Security and Privacy. arXiv:1506.04104. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 June 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  41. ^ Aisch, Gregor; Andrews, Wilson; Keller, Josh (1 October 2015). "The Cost of Mobile Ads on 50 News Websites". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  42. ^ "Upon startup multiple audio sources begin playing. I can't find the tab to kill them!". Support.mozilla.org. 10 August 2011. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  43. ^ "Konqueror browser features". Archived from the original on 10 April 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  44. ^ "Use Do Not Track in Internet Explorer 11". Archived from the original on 1 May 2021. Retrieved 23 March 2019.,
  45. ^ "Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for desktop". support.mozilla.org. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  46. ^ "Content blocking". support.mozilla.org. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  47. ^ Plas, Job (11 February 2015). "Adblock Plus integrated into Maxthon browser". Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  48. ^ "Archived copy". floppymoose.com. Archived from the original on 7 October 2003. Retrieved 1 September 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  49. ^ "How to Use Ad Blockers to Stop Ads from Displaying in Your Web Browser". 23 April 2011.
  50. ^ "How to write filters | Adblock Plus Help Center".
  51. ^ "uBlock, I exfiltrate: Exploiting ad blockers with CSS". 6 December 2021.
  52. ^ The EasyList authors (18 September 2022). MontzA (ed.). "EasyList". EasyList.to. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
  53. ^ Keizer, Gregg (24 July 2018). "The Brave browser basics – what it does, how it differs from rivals". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 29 May 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  54. ^ Roy-Chowdhury, Rahul (13 February 2018). "The browser for a web worth protecting". Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  55. ^ "Under the hood: How Chrome's ad filtering works". 14 February 2018. Archived from the original on 18 June 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  56. ^ "Members". Coalition for Better Ads. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  57. ^ Meyer, David (15 February 2018). "Why Google's Ad-Blocking in Chrome Might Prove Awkward For the Company". Archived from the original on 28 October 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  58. ^ Cimpanu, Catalin. "Google promises to play nice with ad blockers (again)". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 7 November 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  59. ^ Tung, Liam. "Google Chrome could soon kill off most ad-blocker extensions". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 19 December 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  60. ^ Mihalcik, Carrie. "Google says Chrome isn't killing ad blockers". CNET. Archived from the original on 13 June 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  61. ^ Cimpanu, Catalin. "Apple neutered ad blockers in Safari, but unlike Chrome, users didn't say a thing". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 23 September 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  62. ^ Pomeranz, Hal (13 August 2013). "A Simple DNS-Based Approach for Blocking Web Advertising". Deer Run Associates. Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  63. ^ "How to set up AdGuard DNS". adguard.com. Archived from the original on 6 January 2017. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  64. ^ "Alternate DNS – Ad Blocking DNS Server". alternate-dns.com. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  65. ^ "blockerDNS – Get it Now!". blockerdns.com. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  66. ^ Salmela, Jacob (16 June 2015). "Block Millions of Ads Network-wide with a Raspberry Pi-hole 2.0". Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  67. ^ Kuerbis, Brenden (21 May 2010). "The Extent of DNS Services Being Blocked in China". Circleid.com. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  68. ^ Manandhar, Niroj (2 September 2018). "3 ways to adblock Android smartphones and devices". The Jucktion. Archived from the original on 30 November 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  69. ^ Noboa, Gerson (6 March 2019). "Blokada review: Thousands of ad blocking and filtering requests per day". androidguys.com. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  70. ^ Raja (19 September 2017). "How to block system-wide ads on Android without root". androidguys.com. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  71. ^ James, Rogerson (4 January 2021). "The best free Android apps of 2021". techradar.com. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  72. ^ Hazarika, Skanda (29 August 2020). "BraveDNS is an open-source DNS-over-HTTPS client, firewall, and adblocker for Android". xda-developers.com. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  73. ^ "AdTrap". Archived from the original on 9 January 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  74. ^ "AdTrap Whole Network Ad Blocking Appliance Review". Geek Inspector. Archived from the original on 20 August 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  75. ^ O'Reilly, Lara (13 May 2015). "This ad blocking company has the potential to tear a hole right through the mobile web – and it has the support of carriers". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  76. ^ Fisher, Ken (6 March 2010). "Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  77. ^ Edwards, Jim (9 July 2015). "I used the software that people are worrying will destroy the web – and now I think they might be right". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  78. ^ Pearce, Joshua (24 April 2020). "What you need to know about open source ad blockers". Opensource.com. Archived from the original on 17 August 2020. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  79. ^ Hern, Alex (14 October 2013). "Adblock Plus: the tiny plugin threatening the internet's business model". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  80. ^ "Wipr". App Store. Archived from the original on 22 August 2020. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  81. ^ "A look at AdGuard DNS – gHacks Tech News". ghacks.net. 31 December 2018. Archived from the original on 9 October 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  82. ^ "Ad Blocking is Immoral". The Google Cache. 2 August 2007. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  83. ^ "Adblock: Adapt, or die". 5 September 2007. Archived from the original on 17 January 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  84. ^ Kirk, Jeremy (23 August 2007). "Firefox ad-blocker extension causes angst". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  85. ^ Jankovic, Alex (10 March 2022). "Blocking "Adblock" is Proving Disastrous (e.g. Forbes)". Techlaco. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  86. ^ Milligan, Amanda (24 October 2020). "What Is Dwell Time & Why Does It Matter for SEO". Semrush. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  87. ^ Murphy, Kate (20 February 2016). "The Ad Blocking Wars". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 February 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  88. ^ Baraniuk, Chris (31 May 2018). "Where Will the Ad versus Ad Blocker Arms Race End?". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 28 January 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  89. ^ Goodfellow, Jessica (18 April 2016). "Publishers snooping for ad blockers are breaking the law, claims privacy consultant". The Drum. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  90. ^ "Ad Blocking Detection Guidance". IABEurope.eu. 7 June 2016. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  91. ^ "About that claim that detecting Adblock may be illegal". 25 April 2016. Archived from the original on 29 April 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  92. ^ Davies, Jessica (29 April 2016). "Is blocking ad blockers really illegal in Europe?". Digiday.com. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  93. ^ Masnick, Mike (14 August 2017). "How The DMCA's Digital Locks Provision Allowed A Company To Delete A URL From Adblock Lists". Techdirt. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  94. ^ Jones, Rhett (12 August 2017). "A Copyright Claim Was Reportedly Used to Stop Ad Blocking, But It's Complicated". Gizmodo. Gizmodo Media Group. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  95. ^ O'Flaherty, Kate (18 October 2023). "YouTube's New Ad Blocker Crackdown—What You Need To Know". Forbes. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  96. ^ Shah, Saqib (2 November 2023). "YouTube stops users with ad blockers from watching videos". Evening Standard. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  97. ^ Niemeyer, Kenneth (15 October 2023). "YouTube is using pop-ups to tell people to stop using ad blockers, frustrating users". Business Insider. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  98. ^ Claburn, Thomas (26 October 2023). "Privacy advocate challenges YouTube's ad blocking detection". The Register. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  99. ^ "Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI)". Amazon Web Services. Amazon.com. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  100. ^ "YouTube's Ad Blocker Ban Just Got Even Bigger". Forbes. 21 June 2024. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  101. ^ "YouTube looks to be testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers". 9to5Google. 12 June 2024. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  102. ^ Geary, Emma (28 July 2015). "How Apple's embrace of ad blocking will change native advertising". Digiday. Archived from the original on 1 October 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  103. ^ Bond, David (13 May 2017). "Guardian relies on readers' support to stave off crisis". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 15 May 2017. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
  104. ^ Sweney, Mark (12 April 2016). "Guardian to consider preventing access to content if ad-blocking proliferates". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 January 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  105. ^ Kastrenakes, Jacob (28 January 2020). "Scroll makes hundreds of websites ad-free for $5 per month". The Verge. Archived from the original on 28 January 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2020.