Ad blockers are software specifically developed to remove advertisements from the sites you visit and are mostly available as browser extensions.

By using an ad-blocker, we get improved online privacy, speed up website loading, and protect connected devices from spyware. When the user goes online, the computer wastes both resources and internet bandwidth by loading the adverts.

These could include banner ads, pop-ups, or Google placement ads. Some websites also hide spyware and malware in ads, so blocking them is ideal for safety precautions.

AdBlock

Since it removes most of the ads on the websites you visit, pages load faster while helping you save memory usage on your computer.

AdBlock protects your privacy by ensuring that advertisers won’t track your internet activity.

You’ll also eliminate pop-up ads, as well as aggressive pop-unders and third-party trackers, which lessens any distraction.

This also blocks ads from many popular social and streaming platforms. Ads that are deemed non-intrusive are shown by default to AdBlock users.

AdBlock has advanced filtering and whitelisting capabilities, such as allowing you to hide a section of the webpage. It also allows you to block any ads based on keywords, which is a superb feature.

Though it is not free software, the company behind AdBlock asks the users to donate what they can afford.

Adblock Plus

This is a lightweight option, with almost no impact on system resources, making it a good choice for older and slower devices.

It comes with some filter lists pre-set. As well as the Acceptable Ads filter list, Adblock Plus uses the EasyList filter,

ABP also offers a highly customizable filter functionality that you can set up yourself. There’s domain blocking, header filtering, and support for regular expressions

This is more suitable for tech-savvy users to drill down and block not only the website’s pop-ups, but individual elements on a page.

uBlock Origin

This lightweight free ad blocker not only blocks ads in Microsoft Edge but also protects your system from malicious websites. You can create block filters and even turn on or off ad-block for any website.

uBlock Origin (uBO) is a popular free and Open-source cross-platform ad-blocker that also has some quite effective anti-tracking capabilities. On a side note, uBlock Origin is a fork of the original uBlock.

It’s got custom blocklists, dynamic filtering, element inspector, and zapper allowing you to block specific parts of a website, with also site-specific pop-up blocking

uBO does also have the ability to whitelist sites that you want to support directly or where the adverts aren’t too intrusive.

It, too, does block pre-fetched links when the browsers try to speed up the browsing experience by preloading the other links on a page while you are busy reading that page.

Besides leveraging the advertising blocklists, uBlock Origin also uses lists of known malware distributors to automatically block those for you as well

All of uBlock’s blocklists are further maintained by a community of volunteers, no compromises are made to whitelist certain sites, and no worries that it might be doing something nefarious with your data.

Ghostery

This web extension lets you see what companies or advertisers are tracking you by listing them down on each website you visit.

It also has enhanced protection features, including Anti-tracking that removes all your data points, Ad-blocking that eliminates unwanted ads, and Smart-Browsing that automatically blocks trackers that can affect website performance.

Ghostery also gives you much more control over the ads you want and don’t want to see. It features a Granular control that allows you to block and unblock specific trackers on every website you visit.

You also have the option to trust particular sites, allowing you to see ads that support a healthy ecosystem of websites. Lastly, since it declutters web pages, websites load faster.

AdBlocker Ultimate

AdBlocker Ultimate is another free web browser extension that eliminates unwanted ads. Unlike AdBlock, which has a predefined list of accepted ads, this extension gives you complete control over what sites to whitelist or not.

This means that it blocks all kinds of ads you can find online, including pop-up ads, overlay ads, interstitial page ads, and many more. However, if you like to accept ads from various websites, this ad blocker gives you a quicker way.

It also helps you avoid visiting potentially harmful sites, so you can keep browsing safely. Like most ad blockers, AdBlocker Ultimate protects your data from online trackers and activity analyzers.

So, if you just want to remove all ads and focus on content that matters to you, AdBlocker Ultimate is an excellent extension for you.

Adguard Ad Blocker

This adblocker allows you to only see organic content on your favorite social media platform. It also blocks all ads you can find, including pop-ups, banners, video ads, and more.

It can also read anti-block scripts, so you won’t have to turn off the extension when you’re visiting sites that have such codes. However, AdGuard has an option to show some ads that can be beneficial for you, such as search ads.

This adblocker allows you to create your own ad filters to enable ads from various websites you support.

It also protects your personal information by blocking third-party tracking systems, adware, and spyware. Furthermore, it warns you every time you visit malicious and phishing websites.

Disconnect

Disconnect can unblock sites in real-time, just in case you think you need the blocked functionality, and you can also see what has been blocked.

Disconnect is an excellent privacy application that prevents personal data from falling into the wrong hands. This program can speed up your computer while also cleaning up your browser’s display at the same time.

Clean, informative design: Disconnect’s menu system is organized to highlight who is tracking you and which sector each tracker is from. It also comes with performance monitors, like speed and bandwidth monitoring, which state if Disconnect is having a positive or negative impact on your browser.

Disconnect excels at blocking content and increasing your browser’s performance and speed by more than 10 percent.

The ads are also hidden as a side effect of Disconnect’s blocking.

You are, too, able to visualize and block the otherwise invisible websites that track your search and browsing history.

Adblock complete

The most complete Adblock software that removes all kinds of ads.

It features the following:

• Adblocking – they use curated and well-tested ad-blocking filter lists and do also update filters frequently.
• It is easy to set up, as it detects your location and applies filters based on your country.
• Busting Anti-adblock by preventing websites from detecting adblocking software.

Similar Recommended Extensions

HTTPS Everywhere

HTTPS Everywhere is an extension created by EFF and the Tor Project which automatically switches thousands of sites from insecure “HTTP” to secure “HTTPS”. 

It will protect you against many forms of surveillance and account hijacking, and some forms of censorship.

Privacy Badger

Privacy Badger automatically learns to block invisible trackers. Instead of keeping lists of what to block, Privacy Badger automatically discovers trackers based on their behavior.

Privacy Badger sends the Global Privacy Control signal to opt you out of data sharing and selling, and the Do Not Track signal to tell companies not to track you. If trackers ignore your wishes, Privacy Badger will learn to block them.

Besides automatic tracker blocking, Privacy Badger replaces potentially useful trackers (video players, comments widgets, etc.) with click-to-activate placeholders, and removes outgoing link click tracking on Facebook and Google, with more privacy protections on the way.

Conclusion

Blocking ads sounds excellent, but a lot of the time blocking ads also means you’re not supporting websites that offer content for free, so make sure you keep that in mind.

On the other hand, we want to work in an atmosphere that’s free of distractions, as these ads often impact our minds negatively and make way for loss of productivity. However, we also have the other options to pick those that can provide whitelisting to certain sites we don’t want the adblocker to access.