Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus is a free extension that allows you to block annoying ads and disable tracking in all major browsers.

Adblock Plus is an open source project that blocks annoying online advertising. Created by Wladimir Palant in 2006, the browser extension has been downloaded over 250 million times and is available for Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera and the Android operating system. The company Eyeo GmbH was founded in 2011 by Palant and Till Faida to manage this project and to develop similar solutions. The extension manages a group of filter and exception lists, maintained by an open source community of over 27,000 members. Users have the option to use any number of lists, write their own filters and/or pick and choose sites to whitelist on their own. Adblock Plus offers additional features, like anti-tracking, element hiding and anti-malware controls, which give each user yet more control over his or her online experience. Finally, in 2011 the extension introduced their Acceptable Ads initiative, which lets advertisers and websites that serve non-annoying ads apply to get their ads whitelisted. The initiative seeks to keep ad-funded free content viable as adblocking rates increase, while encouraging better ads and giving end-users ultimate control. Users still have the ability to block all ads if they do not want to support the initiative. In 2013 PC Magazine listed Adblock Plus as one of the best free Google Chrome extensions, and it received a 2013 About.com readers’ choice award for best privacy/security add-on.