The key difference between the two is that Google is an ad company, whereas Apple sells hardware-developers don’t need to worry about being unceremoniously booted from iOS the way some ad blockers have been from Google in the past.Ĭonsidering the simplicity of many available ad blocking solutions (as well as its friendly app ecosystem that will encourage future ad blocking innovation), iOS is, at least for now, the overall winner.1Blocker lets you block obtrusive ads, sneaky trackers, and annoying elements on sites. AndroidĪpple might be gaining a ton of attention for allowing content blocking plugins to interface with Safari, but Google’s open ecosystem means that Android users can avoid ads just as well. In general, ad blocking performance is comparable between the major mobile apps available today, and the main differences in usage surround functions like how the browser handles whitespace where an ad used to be. Ghostery even allows you to turn off blocking if you’re on a page that won’t work without it. Ghostery allows users inside the browser to whitelist certain sites, as well as monitor which scripts are tracking you at the moment.
Ghostery on Android uses the excellent (and consistently updated) Ghostery blacklist, which is what popular iOS blocker Peace used before it was pulled from the app store.
However, you can add custom block lists inside the app, although few likely will. Adblock Browser uses Adblock Plus’ blacklist by default, which has been criticized in the past for allowing “ acceptable ads ,” or ads that certain companies have paid to whitelist. On Android, your out-of-the-box blacklist options are more limited. Still, on iOS, there are enough different choices for ad blockers at the moment that users can pick the blacklist and customization options they want. If you’re on a page that won’t work without ads, you’ll need to leave Safari and go into your ad blocking app to disable it. On the other hand, apps like 1Blocker will let you pick individual rules to turn on or off, and gives you granular options like “block Twitter widgets.” The good news is that most of the apps currently available for iOS and Android use lists based on high-quality publicly available block lists like EasyList.Ĭrystal takes a “set it and forget it” approach to its block list-you can’t customize the blacklist beyond reporting sites to the app’s developer, although it does appear to get regular updates. Winner: Android Practical usageĪn ad blocker is only as good as its blacklist, or the list of sites and servers it won’t load. The ability to choose your browser of choice gives Android an advantage. It’s a pain, but relatively straightforward. Winner: iOS InstallationĪll of the iOS ad blockers generally follow the same installation procedure. In the end iOS’s ad blocking plugin options leaves Apple users with better choices.
These are clunky approaches, and are unlikely to be widely adopted.
After installing Firefox, you can navigate to the Firefox Android Add-ons site and install an extension like Adblock Plus or Ublock Origin.įinally, there are system-wide options if you’ve “rooted” your Android device, which means you’ve unlocked certain lower-level system permissions (as well as likely nullified your device’s warranty.) There are also ad blocking apps that work by routing your traffic through a third-party server. It’s also possible to install Firefox on Android, which can use extensions. On the plus side, it’s possible to set one of these as your default browser, so it opens links from other apps. Instead, the most popular options for blocking ads on Android are full browsers, like Adblock Browser or Ghostery Privacy Browser. Chrome, the default Android browser, doesn’t accept ad-blocking plugins like mobile Safari does. However, it’s important to note that you can’t currently make a third-party browser your default on iOS. There are also ad-blocking apps on iOS that are full browsers like Adblock Plus for people who don’t use Safari.
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