Browsing web pages without an AdBlocker is a pain. You have to wait for the page to load, and then you have to close the popups, cookie banners, and ads. Some pages are unusable without an AdBlocker. I think it's a must-have for everyone. There are multiple reasons to use an AdBlocker:
- Reduce annoyances: ads, popups, banners, social media buttons, etc.
- Privacy: Remove trackers
- Performance: Don't waste bandwidth and CPU on ads
- Security: Some ads are malicious. As you don't see them, you can't click on them
- Ecology: less data transferred, less energy used, less incentive to buy new useless stuff
#How to block ads?
- DNS blocking: Not the most efficient as it's easy to bypass, but it works for all applications and is easy to setup
- Browser extensions: The most effective solution, but it only works for browsers
- uBlock Origin: Support all browsers except Safari (documentation)
- You can also configure it to block additional things such as Shorts on YouTube (doc)
- The picker allows you to easily block any element on the page
- AdGuard: works for all browsers including on iOS
On mobile devices, you also need to replace applications with web pages, so the browser extensions can be used. For instance, don't use the Google News application, but use https://news.google.com on Safari. Note that you can add the page to the home page to get a similar experience as an application (iOS documentation).
Additional steps for YouTube. Blocking ads is fine, but many content creator include ads in their videos. You can skip them using an extension such as SponsorBlock.
By removing ads, you also remove the revenue of the content creators. Be sure to support the ones you like using GitHub Sponsor, Patreon, subscription, etc. You can also disable the AdBlocker on the websites you want to support if the ads are not too intrusive.
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