Ad blocking is considered one of the most controversial features on the internet. It adds fuel to the argument between publishers and readers where the publishers claim its necessary to display ads (for earning revenues) and readers find the ads an annoyance.
Despite all that one of the most used third party browsers, Opera, has decided to add native ad blocking to its smartphone browsers for Android, iOS and Windows Phones.
By default, the setting is disabled and those who enable it will find that the browser will block advertisements on all web pages.
Read More: Opera Offers Built-in Ad Blocking in Its Browser
Adblocking – Good or Bad?
The feature will be harmful for the publishers as they make money via ads. With more and more users moving towards mobile devices, such features could hurt the growth and evolution of the internet.
Opera defends the feature itself by saying that it is a data saving feature and will speed up web page loading speeds, especially in places where bandwith is limited.
When will Adblocking Become Available?
Both versions of Opera’s mobile browser, Opera Mini (on iOS, Android and Windows Phone) and Opera browser for Android are getting the integrated ad blocking feature.
From this version onwards, Opera claims all of its browsers, including the desktop browser, have built-in ad blocking functionality. This eliminates the need to download third party add-ons or apps to hide ads.
To enable the feature, a user needs to go to settings and turn on ad blocking in the data saving options.
With the update, Opera has increased its data saving and page load speeds margins over Google Chrome even further.
Opera already possesses a more advanced compression technology and has a browser which is lighter and resource than Google’s Chrome.
Opera says its browser on Android took 4.3 seconds to load a webpage which takes 4.9 seconds when using Chrome’s data saving option
Opera has been amping up its feature list in recent times, claiming to have power saving features and a built-in free VPN solution for everyone. The company is aggressively pushing for greater market share amongst the web browsers of today.
Demand for ad blocking has been growing in recent times and many developers have built ad blocking into their browsers by default.
To download Opera, check out the links below.
Opera Browser – Android
Opera Mini – Android / iOS / Windows Phone
I appreciate Opera’s campaign to save data and bandwidth of a user as much as possible but Adblocking is a little too much. I certainly get why people use Adblockers for I too used them for annoying ads but for websites which provide value and rich content to a user while having non-intrusive should be exempted from this.
Taking Ad Blockers to the next level by integrating them on browsers will only force content creators to start charging for their content. No one is going to be happy with that.