The best ad blockers: what to choose

Ad blockers are tools that allow users to eliminate unwanted advertisements when viewing web pages. They help speed up website loading, enhance privacy, and improve the overall user experience.

Published 2 min read

uBlock Origin
A free and open-source browser extension that effectively blocks ads and unwanted elements on web pages using popular filters. It allows users to customize blocking settings, create custom rules and exceptions, and manually block individual frames and website elements. The extension is available for Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Yandex.Browser, and Vivaldi browsers.

AdBlock
AdBlock is a free browser and mobile device extension that blocks ads across various platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and others. It allows users to customize filters to block specific domains, addresses, or content. AdBlock also protects against third-party trackers, enhances privacy, speeds up page loading, and ensures a comfortable ad-free viewing experience.

Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus is a free content filtering and ad-blocking extension. It supports popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and others. The extension blocks various page elements, including images, scripts, Flash, and Java, and hides text ads using stylesheets and traffic filtering. It supports the "Acceptable Ads" initiative, which allows non-intrusive ads to be displayed, helping to support websites that rely on ad revenue.

Ghostery
Ghostery is a free, open-source extension designed to protect privacy and security on the internet. It blocks ads on websites, prevents trackers from collecting personal data, and blocks pop-up windows requesting cookie consent. Ghostery analyzes pages for third-party elements and provides information about trackers used on the site. Ghostery is available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, iOS, and Android.

AdGuard
AdGuard is powerful software for blocking ads, trackers, malware, and other online threats. It filters ads, including pop-ups, banners, and auto-playing videos, and protects privacy by preventing advertisers and trackers from collecting personal data. Users can create custom filters to block content and websites. AdGuard is available on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux platforms.

Recommendations for choosing an ad blocker

— ensure that the selected ad blocker supports your browser or operating system

— determine which features are most important to you: ad blocking, privacy protection, filter customization, and others

— choose an ad blocker with minimal impact on system performance.