Ad blockers have been around for a while as browser plugins, from apps to prevent ads from loading right through to a hardware based blocker you can install on your network. So it has come as something of a surprise that Adblock would launch their own browser to compete with the likes of Chrome and Firefox on the mobile platform.
The browser itself is essentially Firefox (utilising the open source browser) for Android, with their Adblocker plugin pre-installed. There won’t be any surprises in the behaviour or management of the browser, in fact when I signed in my Firefox Bookmarks came across too.
If you’re keen to check out the Adblock Browser, you’ll need to join their Google+ community as it’s currently in Beta not a full release candidate at this time, but that can’t be far off. For anyone not familiar with the Beta program, before joining and complaining; Developers use Beta to find bugs they may not be able to find for any variety of reasons.
What’s the big deal?
Well for you as the user, what it means is slightly quicker load times on pages, no intrusive adverts and lower data use which (particularly on mobile connection) can be a money saver. An amazing amount of work goes on to keep many sites, like Ausdroid, running and to keep the adverts non-intrusive into your navigation experience on our site.
Adblock Plus have a comprehensive list of requirements to classify as an acceptable advert, which allows adverts to display through their filters.
What a lot of people either don’t know, care or think about is that sites like Ausdroid depend on advertising revenue to keep us financially viable. Without the ad revenue that is generated there’s a strong potential that we would need to seek sponsorship, fund the site out of our own pockets or perhaps even not exist. So please, if you do go down the path of ad blocking (whatever direction you choose), you should at least consider adding Ausdroid to your whitelist.
If you’re an adblock user, what sites do you have whitelisted and why?
Does this app also block all the junk at the bottom of the mobile app.??
LOL, and I quote “An amazing amount of work goes on to keep many sites, like Ausdroid, running and to keep the adverts non-intrusive into your navigation experience on our site.” Then a pop up appears for Ausdroid asking for my email and to sign up, I had to manually X this out. Funny stuff. I guess I will have to install adblock plus to this computer as well. Sorry but you are your own worse enemy.
What’s the benefit of this over Firefox with the adblock addon installed?
+1
Just useless according to me
does that work on your Android phone?
Yep, I have it installed right now