About two months after releasing the first developer channel build of the Opera web browser to feature a built-in ad blocker, Opera is bringing its ad blocker to everyone. And by everyone, I mean everyone using the company’s desktop web browser or the Opera Mini browser for Android.
Opera already supported ad blocking thanks to its support for third-party extensions. But the company says the ad blocker built into the browser is faster and more efficient than third-party solutions, allowing you to load web pages more quickly and save more internet bandwidth.
The ad blocker is disabled by default, but you can turn it on with a single click. You can always disable it for specific sites if the blocker causes problems when trying to load content on those pages, or if you’re cool with seeing ads on some websites but not others.
When I spoke with Opera founder Jon von Tetzchner, who is no longer with the company, he expressed surprise that a company which makes much of its money through advertising would implement this kind of feature. But Opera published a blog post this week saying that the company is basically taking the consumer-friendly stance on ad blocking, since using ad blockers can help protect privacy and security while leading to a faster web.
It’s hard to argue with that… although it does raise the question of how the web would be funded if the majority of users were blocking ads.
Now might be a good time to mention that I just launched a Patreon campaign for Liliputing and the LPX Show. If you’re a regular reader and you use ad blocking software, you might want to consider making a contribution to help support the sites.
Now back to our regularly scheduled article about Opera.
The company may have killed off a number of features a few years ago when the browser switched from using its own Presto rendering engine to using Google’s Blink engine (which is a fork of Webkit). But the addition of features like a native ad blocker and a built-in VPN show that the company is still looking for new ways to differentiate its software from Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers.
via Opera
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Oh great, they’re finally bringing back a feature they removed in 2012.
People should note that it is possible to unblock ads for specific sites in AdBlocker Plus as well. I have this very site unblocked — the ads aren’t intrusive here and this is one of the one-person sites whose owner depends on ad revenue to pay his bills every month. Not all websites are owned by faceless large corporations.
Nice sediment there. I bet you don’t know who owns or runs 90% of sites you visit. I guess collateral damage is the least of your concerns. As they say, no skin off your back. I mean geez, it’s not like people are bright enough to vote with their wallet. Visit sites that don’t suck. Imagine that. Ad laden sites? Find an alternative. Naw, just block ads and visit the trash sites anyways. Condone what you block.
Unfortunately, the VPN feature is not enabled just yet. I could have used it for an upcoming trip.
i.m using it now and its blazing fast.< ..>
Brad should just block your IP. Just because. He won’t because he’s too nice a guy. But yeah, I bet your response is that you have all sites blocked EXCEPT this one. Sure sure.
I am using the mini version on Android. It doesn’t block Liliputing or other less-intrusive ads by default. Looks like a win win to me.
Maybe Brad is friends with the developers? Side deals? Isn’t that how this kind of business model works? Sure the ad blocking initiative and devs are so pure and full of integrity…
So I hope you have alternative revenue generation sources planned other than hoping people who are so adamant on being served free handouts. I guess the whole reward Google had for faster sites and faster mobile sites is a sham. Chase down all that, get better faster hosting, for what purpose? So an ad blocker can default block your ads because well, it’s so much faster without ads. Thus making the efforts to speed up your site nothing but a total F waste of time. The marketing ploy of a browser that removes ads from sites trumps any extra effort and expense that is being paid to make our sites run faster. A better ranking when you can’t monetize that traffic means S. These guys are MF in my books.
I’m not so concerned about blocking ads in-general. But what I want is an ad-blocker setting that only blocks ads that use animated graphics. Animated ads really slow the browser down and ruin the experience, especially on hand-held devices.
Yes block all the ads…until there is nothing worth reading because we killed them! Terrific idea to gain speed but how fast to you wish to get to oblivion.
Paetreon is new to me, Brad. Can you set up a Paypal account to accept donations?
I’d prefer to use a single system for donations. You can use PayPal to contribute through Patreon. If you’re not comfortable doing that, I understand.
They’ve been around for a number of years and are used by some pretty high-profile content creators. It’s basically like a cross between Kickstarter and a public radio pledge drive: instead of pledging money to build a specific product, you can make a monthly contribution to help support someone’s work, and it’s easy to cancel at any time.
I am less concerned about the ads as I am about all the tracking. One positive about the ad-blocking arms race is if the web site owners have to host the ads themselves to bypass ad blockers there will (should) be fewer companies tracking each visitor. I know it is more complicated than I just described but it really isn’t a clear cut issue.
If you stop tracking then that all but removes this sites ability to make money. No ads, no affiliate income = different job.