What is an adblocker and how does it work?

Ads are not always that fun, but many times something necessary. We pay for a lot of the content we consume and the apps we use, with our time. Content creators publish free content, which should give the reader or viewer a value, and allow the recipient to “pay” with their time and attention by advertising products related to the content. Therefore, many websites have banners with ads, youtube videos show ads before or during the time you watch a clip, and so on.

However, there are ways to avoid much of the advertisement that flourishes on the internet today. You do this by installing a, so-called, adblocker. An adblocker is an add-on in your browser, that helps you block a lot of ads.

How does an Adblocker work?

An ad blocker is like a fellow traveler when you browse the internet. Using manual settings or automatic filters, it helps stop material you don’t want to reach your screen.

An ad blocker sits between you and the webpage you visit and looks at the sources of various elements, features, images or videos. Matches any of what it finds to the ad blocking filter list, the add-on ensures that the material is not displayed to you.

What’s good about Adblockers?

For many, this may be a question with an obvious answer. You don’t have to look at annoying or distracting advertising.

But there are also other benefits to adblockers. For example, pages load faster because the ads that are stopped are often heavy with images and animations. In addition, you can save the amount of data that your mobile consumes when you do not have to buffer data heavy advertisements. You can avoid full-page popups that force you to wait 5 seconds before reaching the website you actually wanted to see.

Or when it suddenly starts to sound from the computer, and you have no idea where it comes from. Then it turns out that it’s an ad that started playing on one of the 48 tabs you have open in your browser. You can avoid that with an adblocker.

Different versions of adblockers

There are several different versions of adblockers on the market today.

• AdBlock
• AdBlock Plus
• Ad-Blocker Pro
• Super Ad Blocker
• CyberSec by NordVPN
• CleanWeb by Surfshark
• R.O.B.E.R.T. by Windscribe
• CyberGhost
• AdLock

AdBlock is by far the most common option on the market today. Then AdBlock Plus is a paid version of regular AdBlock. Some of the adblockers listed above cost money, but regular AdBlock is free.

Adblocker’s negative side

But even the sun has its dark spots and there are negative sides with adblockers. Publishers who work with material online are increasingly experiencing problems with profitability due to reduced advertising revenue. When those who publish content cannot make money from it, in the long run, it can reduce the amount of content we can consume in the future.

But many argue that adblockers will improve advertising in the future instead. Advertisers are forced to find new creative ways to advertise, through things like SEO and native ads. Something that is welcomed by many consumers.

Because, aren’t we all a little tired of all those flashing banners?