The best ad blockers should block not just pop-ups, but also annoying and often invasive advertising. As a bonus, some ad blockers also do away with rouge adverts and website malware.
In order to create the optimal browsing experience, many people use an ad blocker to stop distractions and disruptions. Adverts sometimes slow down web pages, or do funny things to formatting, and reduce loading time. The rise of ad blockers has had a huge impact on marketing and online businesses, more generally. In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, US businessman, author, and speaker, "Intrusive advertising is on the way out" - all because of ad blockers. "[Ad blockers] aren’t necessarily that new. The market has to adjust. And in the end, that will be better for the consumer," he continues.
The best ad blockers also help protect your privacy by restricting trackers and cookies that snoop on your browsing activity. Most advertisers now use tracking to serve relevant ads. For example, you can search for a product on Amazon and suddenly see display ads for that same product following you everywhere. Ad blockers prevent trackers from snooping on the websites you visit and serving personalized ads.
To test the ad blockers on this list, we downloaded a number of extensions across a range of compatible browsers, before pursuing a range of websites including mainstream media which are typically littered with ads. We kept an eye out for adverts that slip through, as well as loading times and page performance.
It can be challenging to choose the best ad blocker for you because of choice overload. However, don’t fret. We’ve prepared a list of the best ad blockers you can choose in 2024 and what differentiates each one.
The best ad blockers of 2024 in full:
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Best free ad blocker
Recent updates
August 2024: As Google is moving away from Manifest V2 extension support framework towards V3, uBlock Origin will no longer block ads on Chrome. uBlock Origin Lite complies with Manifest V3, but does not block all ads. It still ranks in our number one spot for its comprehensive ad blocking ability across other browsers, and because it is a free service.
uBlock Origin is arguably the most popular ad-blocking tool, and for good reason. This tool is free to use and very effective at removing ads from your browsing experience. You can download it as an extension across a range of browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Brave, and Safari (before version 13). Unfortunately, uBlock Origin lacks a mobile app like some rival ad blockers.
Released by a solo developer in 2014, uBlock Origin has remained rooted in its free and open-source roots. It hasn’t adopted any monetization strategy – it remains funded by donations. It works well and gives users reports about the number of ads blocked on every website. You can exempt certain sites from ad-blocking while retaining strict blocking for other sites. You can create custom filter lists to block ads according to your configurations.
The uBlock Origin extension is available in 36 languages, each with a separate ad-block list. It’s one of the best ad blockers, but it lacks a desktop or mobile app.
Read our full uBlock Origin review
Best for complementary features
Surfshark doesn’t offer a standalone ad-blocking tool. Instead, it offers ad-blocking under a virtual private network (VPN) subscription, letting you kill two birds with one stone. Surfshark is a reliable VPN service that enables you to disguise your location and encrypt browsing data. It also offers a CleanWeb feature that blocks ads and trackers while you surf the web.
Surfshark can be downloaded as a Chrome, Firefox, or Edge extension. It also has apps for desktops (Windows, macOS, and Linux) and mobile devices (iOS and Android), giving it an edge over other ad-blocking tools.
However, Surfshark isn’t free. You can only access the CleanWeb feature by paying for a subscription plan, which starts at $15 monthly but with heavy discounts if you pay for 12 or 24 months in one go. You can use the 7-day free trial to test the platform before making a final decision.
"There are so many VPNs to choose from — but my wife and I always use Surfshark."
Read our full Surfshark Cleanweb review
Best for user-friendliness
Privacy Badger is another free ad blocker you can choose. This tool is run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a prominent digital rights organization, which maintains it for free.
One of the best things about Privacy Badger is its user-friendliness. Downloading, installing, and using this software is a breeze, with a neat dashboard that makes it easy to find your desired features. You can download Privacy Badger as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. Unlike most free ad blockers, there’s no mobile or desktop app.
Privacy Badger works differently than most ad blockers. Instead of using domain filters, it studies your browsing activity to detect trackers based on their behavior. This algorithm-based ad-blocking enables Privacy Badger to block sneaky ads and trackers, but some ads may occasionally slip through. This platform focuses more on blocking trackers than ads, but it kills both birds with one stone.
Read our full Privacy Badger review
Best for affordability
AdBlock is an excellent ad-blocking tool that helps improve your browsing experience. It's available as a browser extension (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Opera, and Yandex Browser) and a mobile app for iOS and Android. AdBlock Plus has an intuitive interface you'll likely enjoy using. It gives detailed statistics about the ads blocked on every website, allowing you to verify that the tool does its job.
This ad blocker maintains an extensive database of domains known to serve ads and trackers, and it checks your browsing requests against this database to block any ad or tracker-serving domain. Of course, you can exempt specific sites from ad-blocking, e.g., a local news site that you trust.
AdBlock Plus is a freemium tool. It offers a free plan with limited features and a paid plan that unlocks all the advanced features. The premium plan is relatively affordable, starting from $4 monthly.
Read our full AdBlock Plus review
Best for explaining what’s happening
AdBlock is a free ad blocker that is downloadable as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Samsung Internet. This platform is operated by Eyeo GmbH, the same company behind the AdBlock Plus product. It scans and checks your browsing requests against a database of ad and tracker-serving domains, blocking ads from appearing on any website you visit. Of course, AdBlock details the number of ads blocked on every site.
Like most ad-blocking tools, AdBlock allows you to exempt specific sites from its blocking. It offers an “Acceptable Ads” program for non-intrusive ads, but you can simply turn off this option if you don’t want to see any ads, whether deemed acceptable or not. AdBlock offers an intuitive interface with neatly arranged elements and configurations.
The drawback is that AdBlock doesn't include some valuable features on the free plan, such as custom themes and blocking cookie consent popups. You’ll need to upgrade to AdBlock Plus to access these features.
Read our full AdBlock review
Best for blocking popups
If you’re complaining about ads ruining your browsing experience, Ghostery is the perfect tool to solve this problem. This ad blocker does its job excellently and is free to use. It blocks HTTP requests from domains that serve ads and third-party tracking scripts, maintaining a vast, frequently updated script database against which to run checks. You can whitelist specific sites to let ads continue to show while blocklisting the rest.
Ghostery has a feature that blocks annoying cookie popups; it always gives a no-consent response to these cookies. This ad blocker is free but offers some exclusive features to users who donate small amounts to support the project, i.e., "Contributors." As a Contributor, you can see historical ad-blocking stats, compared to free users who only see stats for their current web page. Contributors also get priority support from Ghostery's team.
Read our full Ghostery review
Best for blocking YouTube ads
AdLock is one of the best ad blockers you can choose. It’s one of the few ad blockers that consistently blocks YouTube ads, something many ad blockers increasingly struggle with. AdLock has sophisticated technology to detect and remove ads from your browsing experience, employing various filters to check your browsing requests against and stop ad-serving domains.
You can download AdLock as an extension, desktop app, or mobile app. The intuitive interface makes downloading, installing, and configuring this tool a breeze. AdLock offers a complementary Secure Surfing feature that lets you scan any link and know if it hosts any malware.
AdLock is a freemium tool. You can download the extension for free but must pay to use the mobile or desktop app. The premium plan costs $3.50 monthly, $34 annually, or $63 for five years.
Read our full Adlock review
Best for iOS and macOS users
Wipr is an ad-blocking tool for iOS and macOS devices. You can download it from the App Store or Mac App Store to remove ads from your browsing experience. Wipr effectively blocks display ads, YouTube ads, EU cookie and GDPR popups, and web trackers.
One of the best things about Wipr is its user-friendliness. It has a simple yet elegant interface, which iOS users should be familiar with. Like most ad-blockers, Wipr maintains a database of tracker-serving domains and blocks them from showing anything on your browser.
Wipr does one thing very well: blocking ads. Unlike some ad blockers, it doesn’t have other complementary features. Downloading this tool requires a $1.99 one-time fee, which is very affordable.
Read our full Wipr review
Best ad-blocking desktop app
AdGuard is another superb ad blocker you can choose. It’s one of the few ad blockers with apps for the three popular desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux). Hence, you can block ads while using native desktop apps of platforms like YouTube.
Of course, AdGuard gives users statistics about the ads it blocks from every app or website. You can exempt some sites from the ad-blocking if you wish. This tool offers a complementary security feature that scans websites and alerts you to any malware, a valuable feature when interacting with URLs you don't trust.
AdGuard has a free plan with limited features and a paid plan with more advanced features. You can pay $30 annually for the Personal plan or $66 for the Family plan. Alternatively, you can pay $80 for a Personal lifetime license and $170 for a Family lifetime license.
Read our full AdGuard review
Best for blocking sneaky ads
The Stands AdBlocker is free to use. It offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to download, install, and configure. You can download the extension or mobile app for Android devices. Unfortunately, this ad blocker lacks an iOS mobile app.
This tool gives you considerable control over your ad-blocking settings. You can exempt specific sites from ad and popup blocking. Despite being free to use, you can access significant support resources, including a support email to contact for help. It has some noticeable drawbacks, such as the lack of an iOS app, but the benefits significantly outweigh these disadvantages.
Read our full Stands AdBlocker review
Best for pop-ups
I've included Poper Blocker on this list, even though it's a secondary tool. With Poper Blocker, whatever pop-ups another adblocker might have missed will get squashed forever. Only available for Chromium-based browsers, the solution also goes after pop-users, overlays, and other nuisances. When a pop-up is removed, you'll get a notification, which comes in hand when something you do want to see is flagged.
Because of its limited use, you should find an ad-blocker that best suits your needs and add Poper Blocker. You'll be happy you did. Although Poper Blocker is free, you'll need to pay for a membership to access every feature.
We've also featured the best privacy tools and anonymous browsers.
FAQs
Is advertising always bad?
On the benefits side, online advertising, especially e-commerce sites, can remember who you are and adjust its pages accordingly. Have you noticed how your favorite shopping store always seems to have what you're looking for on the home page or is running a sale on your favorite shorts? Again, you can thank online advertising.
These ads can also help you better compare products, so you're always paying the best price — if that means visiting another site. Online advertising can also track the latest trends, news headlines, and more, so you're a more savvy shopper or citizen.
How to choose the best ad blocker for you
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Free version? | Mobile app? | Desktop app? | Additional features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| uBlock Origin | Yes | No | No | Exemption list, user reports |
| Surfshark Adblocker | No | Yes | Yes | Cookie pop-up blocking, VPN |
| Privacy Badger | Yes | No | No | Tracker detection |
| Adblock Plus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Exemption list, database of ads & trackers |
| AdBlock | Yes | Yes | No | Exemption list |
| Ghostery | Yes | Only iOS | Yes | Exemption list |
| AdLock | Yes | Yes | Yes | YouTube ad blocker, Secure Surfing feature |
| Wipr | No | Only iOS | Yes | YouTube ad blocker |
| AdGuard | Yes | Yes | Yes | Exemption list, security features |
| Stands AdBlocker | Yes | Only Android | Yes | Exemption list, extensive support |
| Poper Blocker | Yes | Only Android | Yes | Focuses on popups |
How we test
To test for the best ad blockers, we downloaded and installed a number of extensions for different browsers, especially Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. We ran through their settings to see how easy they were to customize and set up. Then we went surfing through the internet, especially on mainstream media websites which are flooded with advertising. We kept a lookout for how well ads were blocked, and whether using the ad blocker adversely impacted our viewing experience.
In addition to the eleven ad blockers above we've provided a detailed breakdown of, we've also taken a look at several others, evaluating against the same criteria to narrow down our best of the best.
Our key buying criteria
To narrow down our list of the best ad blockers on the market, we tested each one against various criteria. These were:
Cost: You'll have noticed that many ad blockers are free - but not all. To determine whether an ad blocker represents good value for money, it's important to identify more than just the cheapest option. Many of the ad blockers that charge the user come with additional features, for example.
Performance: This was relatively straightforward to test. We determined that the best performing ad blocker is one that blocks the highest number of intrusive ads. Many ad blockers actually provide reports on the numbers of ads they've blocked to aid comparison.
Ease of use: Ad blockers should work seamlessly in the background. After all, they are designed to reduce friction for online users - not increase it. We looked for a clear design and an intuitive interface.
Compatibility: This is an area with a marked discrepancy between ad blockers. While some are only available as browser extensions, others have their own bespoke app - but even so, are they available on Android devices, iOS, or both. Compatibility will reveal how accessible a certain ad blocker is to particular users.
Honorable mentions
There are a plethora of different ad blockers on the market - all promising to rid users of the scourge of annoying popups and other distractions. While we've highlighted the best options in our view, there are many alternatives which are worth checking out, even if they didn't quite manage to make it on to our main best ad blockers list.
Here are some honorable mentions of other ad blockers we've tested that are worth checking out:
- AdClear: One of the better mobile ad blockers on the market, AdClear (or AdClear Plus if you're an iOS user) receives some real plaudits because it no only blocks ads from appearing in your browser; it even blocks in-app ads.
- Total Adblock: Although Total Adblock provides a pretty good ands-off ad-blocking experience, the free version has its fair share of annoying popups.
- NordVPN: A very decent ad blocker, but you will have to stump up for Threat Protection Pro to enjoy it to the maximum.
- Trustnav Adblocker: Offers advanced browser and video ad-blocking, but there aren't many settings you can adjust.
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