Ad blocking
lastmod 2025-12-10created 2022-03-238 edits
Ad blocking, or ad filtering, is the removal or replacement of advertising content on web pages. Ads come in many forms, such as images, animations, text, or pop-up windows. More advanced filters allow fine-grained control over ads through features such as blocklists, allowlists, and regular expression filters. Some security features are achieved by preventing certain ads from running.
The immediate benefits are faster page loading, a cleaner screen free of ads, and less waste of resources (bandwidth, CPU, memory, etc.). In the long term, it may change unrestrained online advertising practices and may also reduce the revenue of websites that are supported by advertising.
Projects
- AdBlock
- Adblock Plus
- AdGuard
- uBlock Origin
- SponsorBlock - extension that skips YouTube sponsor segments
- Anti-spam
- Pi-hole - a "DNS sinkhole" that blocks all ads on the network
- AdGuard Home - network-wide ad and tracker blocking DNS server