Chances are you have spent a whole lot of time finding and installing adblockers to your browser of choice. However, there are actually quite a few browsers with these features built in. Save yourself some time by trying one out. These featured browsers will by no means block everything, but they are a great addition to add to your arsenal of ad-block and security programs.
1. Opera
Opera is a lightweight browser with a Chrome-like feel, designed to help you breeze through your web searches and browsing. It’s available for the main operating systems and claims to save battery life on laptops. Furthermore, for the frequent YouTube viewer, it allows for the placement of a floating YouTube window on the desktop. Ad-blocking most definitely is at its core, but it comes packed with a few other features.
2. Brave
Brave is a browser created by the former CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich. The browser is lightweight, as it should be, and it offers the ability to donate to content creators directly rather than through ads. In addition, you can see which ads are prying to break your privacy and which ads are not trying to track you. HTTPS is standard for Brave, which is one of the more secure channels of data transfer. Developers should also know that Brave is a piece of open-source software, so you will have the chance to make it better. All-in-all, Brave is a superb browser that delivers on its key promises, and it is most definitely worth your time to give a try.
3. Slimjet
In addition to the ad-blocking capabilities we have seen in ad-blocking browsers thus far, Slimjet offers a bit more. A high-speed download manager touts the use of multiple connections to download files quicker, forms fill automatically upon a page being loaded, YouTube videos can be downloaded from the browser as an MP4 or MP3, and a whole lot more. For the power user, Slimjet is not to be overlooked!
4. Google Chrome (Soon)
Recent rumors from April of 2017 have surfaced claiming that Google’s Chrome browser will soon come with an ad-blocker built in. It is likely to be turned on by default for all users, which is especially great for those users that may be less suspecting of even the most malicious ads and links. One looming pitfall, though, is that Google may block just about everything that is not Google Ads or YouTube ads. That having been said, would it truly be an ad-blocker in the traditional sense? Nonetheless, it would add one more line of defense to a browser that reigns over roughly 54% of the browser usage share.
Conclusion
The battleground of keeping users’ data safe and secure is tough, and there certainly is a lot of muck to slow down your Internet speed. What is your favorite browser to use that has some degree of an ad-blocker built in? Also, do you think more and more mainstream browsers will incorporate some form of ad-blocker as a default? Why or why not? We would love to hear your thoughts!
I’m a junior at UT Dallas, a tech enthusiast, an adreneline junkie, and a coffee fanatic.
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