adguard for safari ios

The best ad blockers in 2024

Say goodbye to intrusive online advertising with the best ad blockers

Best in-browser ad blockers

Best ad-blocking apps, best ad-blocking mobile apps, other privacy-focused extensions and apps.

The best ad blockers are crucial to survive on the modern internet. Not matter where you go, you're at risk of being harassed by pop-ups, tracker cookies, malvertising and countless other digital nasties that seem hell-bent on ruining your online experience. Even if all your browsing is above board, you're still at risk.

Thankfully there's no shortage of apps and browser extensions that can block ads and keep you safer when you're online. Combined with the best antivirus software and the best VPNs , a good ad-blocker gives you a perfect arsenal of tools to offer as much protection as possible. Even the FBI recommends using an ad-blocker for protection.

The only thing you need to figure out is which ad-blocker is right for you. There are so many to choose from, and whether you are willing to live with the downsides. Most free sites rely on advertising revenue to survive, including Tom's Guide. But if you're happy with the trade-off, we've got a thorough list of the best ad blockers and privacy tools — with options for every browser and platform.

The best ad blockers you can get today

1. adblock plus (chrome, edge, firefox, opera, safari, android, ios).

AdBlock Plus (ABP) is among the most popular ad blockers, with extensions available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge and Opera. ABP features a quick setup, loading preset filter lists that allow users to quickly block most ads, as well as the option to filter malware and social media buttons. 

Savvy users can chose additional block lists as well as set custom filters or whitelist their favorite sites to keep their ad revenue in the black. AdBlock Plus allows what it calls "non-intrusive advertising" through filters; that may irk some users, though this feature can be disabled in settings. 

On Android, the AdBlock Browser provides a Firefox-based browser that blocks incoming advertising, while on iOS, the AdBlock Plus app integrates with the content blocker system to seamlessly block advertising on Safari with minimal setup.

Download AdBlock Plus: Firefox , Chrome , Safari , Opera , Edge

2. AdBlock (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)

AdBlock (no relation to AdBlock Plus) is the other best ad-blocking browser extension of note, available for users of Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari. AdBlock uses a series of filter lists to automatically block ad content coming from known ad servers and providers. Users can stick with the default block lists, subscribe to additional ones, or even create their own, as well as whitelist their favorite websites. 

As one of the most downloaded Chrome and Safari extensions, AdBlock has the trust of many users worldwide.

Download AdBlock: Chrome , Firefox , Safari , Edge

3. uBlock Origin (Chrome, Firefox)

Ublock Origin is a browser-based ad blocker that focuses on simple, efficient blocking with a low resource overhead. The extension comes loaded with a number of filter lists for known advertising and malware sources, with extra filter lists available and the option to read and create your own custom filters from hosts files.

Download Ublock Origin: Chrome , Firefox

4. Poper Blocker (Chrome)

Rather than be an all-in one blocking solution, Poper Blocker (aka Pop Up Blocker For Chrome), is designed to complement other adblockers. 

In this case, Poper Blocker focuses on blocking pop-ups, pop-unders, overlays, timed and scroll pop-ups, and other varieties that might slip past other ad-blocking extensions. Small notifications tell you when pop-ups are blocked. You also can view your blocking stats, but otherwise, you can generally just keep Poper Blocker running in the background with minimal impact alongside other adblocker extensions.

Download Poper Blocker: Chrome

5. Stands Fair AdBlocker (Chrome)

For a fast and light ad-blocking plugin, Chrome users can turn to Stands Fair AdBlocker. The extension does precisely what it promises, blocking ads and pop-ups from cluttering up your browser view while also preventing any tracking from going on. 

Stand's Fair AdBlocker gives you control over the type of ads you can block, specifying everything from autoplay video ads, YouTube ads, expanding ads and more. It can even block Facebook ads if you want.

The "Fair" part of AdBlocker comes into play by giving you the ability to allow certain types of ads or even whitelist ad-supported websites you don't want to shortchange of badly needed revenue. This is one ad blocker that doesn't take a scorched earth approach to its stated purpose.

Download Stands Fair AdBlocker: Chrome

6. Ghostery (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Edge)

Like the other extensions on our list of the best ad blockers, Ghostery can remove ads from webpages, so you can focus on content and browse more efficiently. But the real value in Ghostery lies in its privacy protection features. You can use Ghostery to view trackers, which lets you see who's trying to collect data on you. With Ghostery, you can also stop that tracking from taking place. If you really want to safeguard your privacy, you can turn to Ghostery's Enhanced Anti Tracking to anonymize your data.

Ghostery's a free download that offers basic web protection. More advanced protection starts at $4.99 a month and the $11.99 monthly tier comes with a built-in VPN. There are also versions of Ghostery that work with Android and iOS devices.

Download Ghostery: Chrome , Firefox , Opera , Safari , Edge

7. Adblocker for YouTube (Chrome, Firefox)

YouTube has gotten more aggressive with ads, so the makers of ad-blocking extensions have followed suit. Adblocker for YouTube is a Chrome extension that promises to automatically block YouTube ads, whether we're talking about the pre-roll ad appearing before your video or any text and banner ads that appear on the video itself.

If you prefer Firefox to Chrome, there's also an AdBlocker for YouTube extension that works on that browser. Same name, different developer apparently, but the functionality of stripping out video and display ads remains. This version works on Android devices too.

Download Adblocker for YouTube: Chrome , Firefox

1. AdGuard (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS)

Uses looking for a more robust experience can try out the subscription-based AdGuard, which provides desktop and mobile options to reduce the ads you see when surfing online. 

AdGuard on Windows and Mac covers popular browsers, with highly configurable options for ads, content, and tracker blocking, as well as a parental controls module for restricting adult content. AdGuard for Android is a no-root ad-blocker that blocks advertising on apps and games, though you’ll have to install it from AdGuard’s site instead of through Google Play. AdGuard for iOS works with Safari to effectively filter ads on the default browser.

Download AdGuard: Windows , Mac , Android , iOS

2. AdLock ($33 per year)

AdLock avoids the browser-based route, instead opting to run as a separate program to be able to block not only browser-based ads, but also advertising in other programs like Skype or games. 

The app runs in the background, using filters to block ads, popups, and autoplaying videos, speeding up loading times and applying Safe Browsing features to automatically block sites that are known to be unsafe. 

For obvious reasons, the mobile version is unavailable on the Google Play Store, so you'll need to sideload the app if you want to get AdLock into your Android device. iOS users can download AdLock directly from Apple's App Store.

Download AdLock: Windows , Chrome ,  Android , Mac , iOS

3. Wipr (macOS, iOS; $1.99)

If you’re a Safari fan, Wipr may be the best ad blocker for both your Mac and iPhone. The app is available for both iOS and macOS — costing $1.99 from either Apple App Store — and it promises to work with Safari as well as apps that use Safari for displaying web pages.

You’ll find a full array of features with Wipr, which not only blocks apps and trackers, but cryptocurrency miners, EU cookie and GDPR notices and anything else that gets in your way of surfing the web. Its blocklist gets updated twice a week, and there’s little configuration; the idea is that you load Wipr and forget that it’s there while it does its job in the background.

With Wipr, pages should load faster in Safari, which will be particularly welcome if you’re surfing from an iPhone, where ads and trackers can bog down your browser’s speed.

Download Wipr: macOS , iOS

1. 1Blocker (iOS)

1Blocker was one of the first really good ad blockers on iOS when Apple opened up that functionality on iPhones and iPads; the apps has since been optimized for Safari. 

The app is designed to make browsing faster and more secure by blocking ads, popups, trackers and other online cruft. Rather than blocking content of a downloaded page, 1Blocker works with Safari's content blocker API to tell the browser what to block in advance, saving time and resources. 

1Blocker features more than 115,000 blocker rules, custom regional adblocking settings, and easy-to-use custom rules settings. The app is a free download, with premium features available as in-app purchases.

Download 1Blocker: iOS

2. Firefox Focus (Android, iOS)

Firefox Focus is another addition to Mozilla's family of browsers. This one's a privacy-oriented version of Firefox that bakes in ad-blocking and anti-tracking into a light and functional package. Firefox Focus blocks ads and speeds up browsing, while also working in privacy-friendly features like automatic history and cookie clearing. 

Users can selectively block ads, analytics, content and social trackers with easy toggles, turn on a "stealth" mode, and set a default search engine.

Our look at the best Android browsers has more on the various flavors of Firefox.

Download Firefox Focus: Android , iOS

3. AdClear (Android, iOS)

AdClear — or AdClear Plus if you're searching for the iOS version — offers the kind of mobile ad blocking in browsers that similar apps provide. But AdClear takes it one step farther by also blocking ads in apps. 

AdClear achieves this through a DNS changer feature that routes traffic through a VPN. AdClear doesn't catch everything in all apps, and in our experience, some apps ran a little slower. But this free download can put a stop to ads interrupting what you're trying to do whether in an app or a browser.

Download AdClear: Android , iOS

1. Decentraleyes (Chrome, Firefox)

Some times, blocking ads can also prevent websites fromn pulling needed resoruces and libraries from third-party sources, breaking web pages in the process. Decentraleyes tries to stop that from happening by acting as a local content delivery network emulator to serve up the files that websites need. By doing so, this extension can stop websites from sending out requests to the likes of Google Hosted Libraries.

Think of Decentraleyes as a complement to ad blockers. In fact, the extension specifically says it can work with uBlock Origin and AdBlock Plus, both of which we recommend up above.

Download Decentraleyes: Chrome , Firefox

2. Opera (Desktop, Android, iOS)

The Opera browser bakes in ad-blocking features into the browser without the need for an extra add-on, while also offering privacy-friendly tools such as an unlimited, built-in VPN service, incognito mode, fraud and malware warnings for suspicious links and pages, and more. In addition, you can further customize Opera's capabilities with a wide array of extensions. 

Mobile users need not fret, as the Android version comes with just about everything the desktop version has but built for touch-screen interfaces. On iOS, the mobile version of Opera is listed in Apple's App Store as Opera Touch. (Incidentally, we've got a guide on how you can use Opera to block ads on the iPhone .)

Download Opera: Mac or Windows , Android , iOS

3. Privacy Badger (Chrome, Firefox, Opera)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Privacy Badger browser extension was born from the EFF's concerns about the business models of some privacy tools and ad blockers. 

Privacy Badger functions similarly to extensions like AdBlock Plus (on which it was based), observing the various tracking tools that advertisers and other third parties might use to track your online activities and selectively blocking them from executing. Built-in learning algorithms adapt to the sites you visit and take any new tracking tools discovered into account. 

While not explicitly an ad blocker, Privacy Badger does also block some advertising, depending on how aggressively the ads track you across websites.

Download Privacy Badger: Chrome , Firefox , Opera

4. Tor Browser (Desktop, Android)

The Tor network helps anonymize your internet activity by bouncing the data you send and receive through a distributed anonymous network of routers to foil a common online surveillance technique called traffic analysis, which can reveal the sites you visit or who you're communicating with. 

The Tor Browser is an all-in-one package that includes everything you need to surf the net through the Tor network in an easy-to-install portable package. The package includes a modified version of Firefox with privacy aids such as NoScript baked in, and an automatic setup aid that makes it easy to connect to and create new Tor circuits. 

On the desktop, you can grab a version of Tor Browser for Windows, macOS or Linux. There's also a version of Tor Browser for Android, which replaces the previous OrBot + OrFox combination recommended for browsing Tor on Android.

Download Tor Browser: Desktop , Android

5. Onion Browser (iOS)

iOS users aren’t left out when it comes to browsing the Tor anonymizer network, with the Onion Browser among the more popular options on Apple’s mobile OS. 

Previously a premium app, Onion Browser has since moved to a donation model, opening up access to everyone who wants to download the app, without compromising security or features. The usual caveats apply: Browsing through Tor will slow down the web experience, and some features, like video streams and video files won’t work in order to preserve anonymity.

Download Onion Browser: iOS

How to choose the best ad blocker for you

Many of the best ad blockers are available for free, either as extensions or as standalone apps, though a few, like AdLock, charge a fee. Determine if the free services provide enough ad-blocking to meet your needs or whether a paid app delivers more for your money. You should also figure out if a browser extension will take care of your ad-blocking needs or whether you should consider switching browsers to one with more built-in privacy features.

You can narrow down your choice in ad blockers by deciding specifically what you're looking to accomplish with such an app or extension. Do you just want to stop annoying pop-up ads from appearing or do you want the full range of services, including privacy features and an end to ad-tracking? Grab the ad blocker that ticks off all the boxes on your wishlist.

Some ad blockers, such as AdBlock Plus include filters and the ability to let in non-obtrusive advertising. Others, like AdBlocker Ultimate, take a more aggressive approach. Find out which one best suits your needs and comfort level.

As we noted at the outset, there's also an ethical component to ad blockers. Do you feel comfortable keeping ad revenue out of the hands of sites you enjoy and use for free? As good as the best ad blockers are, that's still a trade-off you need to consider when deciding whether to install one as a browser extension or as a standalone app. 

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• kep55 I'm waiting for an ad blocker that will spoof the websites into thinking there is no ad blocker in place. More and more sites are incorporating code that disables the site entirely or many of the features if an adblocker is in use. Reply

kep55 said: I'm waiting for an ad blocker that will spoof the websites into thinking there is no ad blocker in place. More and more sites are incorporating code that disables the site entirely or many of the features if an adblocker is in use.

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Best ad blocker for iPhone & iPad

Adverts can be an annoying distraction when online. It’s true that most of the ‘free’ sites you visit owe their continued existence to the revenues that advertising brings in, but sometimes these can cross the line and just become intrusive. If you find this to be the case, then good news is at hand:  iOS allows third-party apps to block ads when using Safari.

To save you time, we’ve put together a list of the best of the current ad-blocking crop, all of which halt the visual assaults and restore peace to your device once more.

Note that you will need to set up the feature in iOS. We show you the required steps in our How to block ads on iPhone and iPad guide.

AdGuard is one of our favourite free ad blockers due not only to its simplicity, but also how customisable it is. There are more than 50 filters built into the app, allowing you to see exactly what you want to see – and not the rest. Even if there’s not a premade filter that you require, you’ll be able to create it in the app with a few taps.

Trackers that are used to target personalised ads at you are also blocked when using AdGuard. Oh, and for all the social pariahs out there, there’s even an option to block social media widgets from any site accessed on Safari.

AdGuard claims that iOS users should see improvements in battery life, due to the lessened drag-factor of ads, plus an increase in performance on Safari by up to 400%.

There’s also a £1.99 Pro variant , which adds multiple DNS support, parental controls, and increased privacy protection.

AdBlock is the original iOS ad blocker, and has been the go-to for many iPhone and iPad users since 2012. Where AdBlock excels is in its ease of use – after installing the app, all you need to do is swipe up from the bottom of the display in-app to activate the service. It’ll refresh its databases with the latest info on every single app run, and promises not to send your traffic through a remote server like less reputable ad blockers do.

Like other ad blockers, AdBlock also blocks trackers from being able to see what you do online and use this information to target ads at you. There’s a whitelist that you can add to and edit, and there’s even a handy Today Widget that allows you to toggle the service on and off on-the-fly.

Oh, and all your settings will be synced between all iOS devices via iCloud. Nice and simple!

StopAd is a great, free, blocker that can handle the majority of pop-ups and banner ads that appear on Safari.

It’s also a dab-hand at preventing autoplay videos on sites, and can even block ads on YouTube. Those worried about privacy will like the various safeguards against trackers that follow you around the web, plus there’s malware protection if something should manage to slip through the net.

StopAd offers lots of useful features, all in a lightweight app that is simple to use.

When it comes to granular control over your ad blocking experience, 1Blocker X is the ultimate app for iPhone and iPad. Why? The app allows you to fully customise your ad blocking experience, allowing you to block specific elements that you might find annoying. These can be anything from particular ad types to Facebook and Twitter widgets that appear online, plus it blocks a huge amount of trackers from watching what you’re up to online.

In fact, 1Blocker X is now the first ad-blocking app that has more than 115,000 rules that can be employed to contend with the worst the web has to offer.

You can also hide annoying content directly within Safari without leaving the app. Simply activate 1Blocker in the Share Sheet and tap the content you’d like to hide.

It’s not free, costing £4.99/$4.99, but is worth every penny.

Purify is a simple yet effective ad blocker for iOS that provides something a little different to the apps mentioned above. As well as offering standard ad- and tracking-blocking capabilities, Purify allows users to block other features that can eat data or drain your device battery.

These include images, scripts and custom fonts that you may come across on websites on the web, each of which will eat your data and use up battery life. It should make loading pages speedier too (Purify claims up to 4X faster), which is ideal if you’re on a slow mobile or Wi-Fi connection.

Of course, Purify also allows you to whitelist websites that you wish to support, and this is done in a similar way to 1Blocker X – via the Share Sheet in Safari.

Author: Lewis Painter , Senior Staff Writer

Lewis Painter is a Senior Staff Writer at Tech Advisor. Our resident Apple expert, Lewis covers everything from iPhone to AirPods, plus a range of smartphones, tablets, laptops and gaming hardware. You'll also find him on the Tech Advisor YouTube channel.

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Releases: AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari

1.11.18 beta.

The filter developers said that this version blocks ads more effectively thanks to updated Scriptlets. Should we take their word for it or get the new version and see for ourselves?

Scriptlets (JavaScript enhancement for filtering rules)

• Updated Scriptlets to v1.10.25 #983

How to install AdGuard for Safari

• TestFlight beta version
• Mac AppStore
• Standalone build, release channel
• Standalone build, beta channel
• 👍 1 reaction

As Sigmund Freud used to say: "Sometimes a new version is just a new version". This time, we've gone with the standard set of changes: updated scriptlets, translations, and filters — without pomp and fanfare, but with a great sense of responsibility.

Improvements

• Updated filters
• Updated translations
• Updated Scriptlets to v1.10.1
• 👍 2 reactions

1.11.17 beta

• ❤️ 2 reactions

This small release should help those users who could not watch videos on YouTube without disabling the extension. We’ve updated our Scriptlets to give filter developers more flexibility in creating ad-blocking rules and make sure you can watch videos without interruption. We have also improved the way we apply advanced filtering rules. For you, this means better ad blocking on websites.

• Improved advanced rules applying method #917
• Scriptlets updated to v1.9.91

Important for filter maintainers

• Added !#else pre-processor directive support #20
• 👍 4 reactions

1.11.16 beta 2

We were eager to deliver the shiny new beta version of AdGuard for Safari, but a pesky bug in the scriptlets slipped through our testing. Now that it’s fixed and our scriptlets have been updated, don’t hesitate to give our second beta a try.

1.11.16 beta

Some might say that not every release is worth celebrating, as they often consist of minor improvements and bug fixes. Well, we beg to differ. We are very proud to present to you the updated version of AdGuard for Safari. Our main focus here was to ensure compatibility with the new macOS Sonoma, which includes improving our extension overall.

One icon is better than two

As some of you may know, the new macOS Sonoma has been released, bringing a significant change to the Safari browser. Now all extension icons are displayed in the toolbar by default, even if they are not supposed to be there. As a result, the AdGuard Advanced Blocking extension icon also ended up on the toolbar, causing frustration for users.

To address this issue, we’ve merged two extensions into one, called AdGuard for Safari.

What else? We have successfully fixed the annoying issue of the settings panel opening on login. This problem had previously been resolved, but reappeared. Now everything is back to normal.

Finally, we have fixed several bugs in SafariConverterLib — the library responsible for converting AdGuard rules into a format supported by Safari. Our Scriptlets library, which contains short parameterized scripts used for advanced blocking rules, has also been updated. Now it’s your turn to update!

• Settings panel opens on login #853
• $match-case modifier does not work #55
• Scriptlets updated to v1.9.72
• 👍 9 reactions
• ❤️ 3 reactions
• 🚀 4 reactions

1.11.15 beta

What else? We have successfully fixed the annoying issue of the settings panel opening on login. This problem had previously been resolved, but reappeared. Now it’s back to normal.

• Settings panel opens at login #853

We continue to improve AdGuard for Safari. This version fixes several converter performance issues and brings updates to Scriptlets, SafariConverterLib, and AdGuard Assistant.

• Rules containing if-domain and unless-domain with regex values are not supported #53
• Rules with a large number of domains in unless-domain and if-domain are split #51
• Selecting elements to block does not work on baidu.com #1246
• AdGuard Assistant updated to v4.3.70
• Scriptlets updated to v1.9.37
• SafariConverterLib updated to v2.0.40
• 👀 1 reaction

1.11.14 beta

We continue to improve AdGuard for Safari. This beta version fixes several converter performance issues and brings updates to Scriptlets, SafariConverterLib, and AdGuard Assistant.

AdGuard for Safari 4+

Adblock and privacy, adguard software limited.

• 4.6 • 21.5K Ratings

Screenshots

Description.

More than 35,000,000 AdGuard users enjoy the better, faster, and safer Internet. The ad blocker extension clears all ads in Safari and fights data tracking to protect privacy. Unlike other major ad blockers, AdGuard provides some extra features you are used to having with the traditional (now deprecated) extensions: ● Manage protection from Safari ● Choose among popular filter lists ● Add custom filter lists ● Create your own filtering rules ● Manual blocking tool ● Whitelist websites in one click AdGuard for Safari is based on the Safari native content blocking API, which makes it lightning fast. KEY FEATURES ◈ Blocking Ads Remove all kinds of ads from Safari browser easily. We have plenty of ad blocking filters and even an ability to manually remove ANY element on the page that you don't like. ◈ Blocking Trackers Make your personal information protected by blocking known trackers. ◈ Blocking Annoyances Tired of all the «Like» buttons and similar widgets infesting all of your frequented web pages? Just enable AdGuard "Social Media filter" and forget about them. ◈ Faster Browsing Speed By preventing ads, annoyances, and trackers from loading when you visit a certain page, AdGuard makes browsing smoother and faster. ◈ Free and Open Source AdGuard for Safari is a free and open source software. The source code is available on Github: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardForSafari

Version 1.11.17

As Sigmund Freud used to say: “Sometimes a new version is just a new version”. This time, we've gone with the standard set of changes: updated scriptlets, translations, and filters — without pomp and fanfare, but with a great sense of responsibility.

Ratings and Reviews

21.5K Ratings

Good Set & Forget Ad Blocker

Clean, simple, and easy to understand. I use on my Mac as well as my iOS devices. Great Apple citizen. Recent updates have made this much easier to use via the built in system controls. Also a big handy feature for me is the ability to quickly, permanently block elements on a webpage just by selecting them, great for navigating poorly designed websites with elements that cover others especially on mobile. However 4 out of 5 times when a website won't work or load it's because this is blocking some linked script or tracking redirect, which is sometimes annoying, especially when you have to do it several times every time such a link is clicked, but the app is just doing its job of blocking sketchy connections that I don't want and that's more a fault of the web at large.

Some annoying bugs, please fix!

This app appears to do a great job and what it sets out to do, but there is an annoying bug that renders this quite frustrating on a fresh boot: when this app is set to open at login, it does NOT honor the "hide" setting checkbox under System Preferences --> Users and Groups --> Current User --> Login Items --> "hide" checkbox next to AdGuard for Safari. Normally, when the system is rebooted and this box is checked, the app can launch, but without the application window opening in front of the user. Please fix this, so that the app can launch at login without popping up its preferences window each time! Finally, as a feature request, please support Catalina auto dark mode, and please allow for iCloud-based settings syncing... thanks!

BEST Ad Blocker for Mojave

After upgrading to Mojave, I found Safari has completely changed its mechanism of extensions. All of my ad block plug-ins now only function in very limited manners (no filter setting, no element inspections etc.). And I feel particularly annoyed -- I browse Chinese websites frequently, yet almost all ad blockers would never succeed in removing ads in foreign languages unless you set up filters manually. Yet as I said before, all most all ad blockers under Mojave are too succinct to offer such advanced features. Thankfully, I finally found this lovely, amazing, elegant, useful, powerful AdGuard. The pre-installed language-specific filer lists are totally incredible. To Mojave users, if you're reading this review, pls stop searching for other ad blockers. AdGuard is THE BEST!

App Privacy

The developer, Adguard Software Limited , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

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Microsoft seasons Start menu in Windows 11 with ads. How to avoid them?

Microsoft, the tech giant that juggles an impressive portfolio of assets, has apparently decided to squeeze a few more droplets of money out of Windows users by stuffing the Start menu in Windows 11 with ads.

The recommended section of the Start menu will now display some Microsoft Store apps “from a small set of curated developers,” according to the company. Ostensibly, this move is meant to help users discover new and “great” apps, but it risks cluttering the screen with unnecessary distractions.

Source: WindowsLatest

For users who have updated to the latest version of the OS, clicking the Start button will now reveal not only a neat arrangement of their usual pinned apps, but also recommended third-party apps. The new treat, or rather scourge, is only for individual PC users. PCs managed by organizations, classified as commercial devices, are spared from this intrusion of ads.

If you’re one of the many users who find this feature more of a nuisance than a benefit, there’s a way to disable it. You can go to Settings > Personalization > Start and uncheck the Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more checkbox. You can also change the layout at the top of the screen by selecting “More pins” to minimize the space taken up by the recommendations section.

While Microsoft gives users a choice, it’s still unfortunate that they have to resort to such measures to reclaim control over their user experience. By enabling the feature by default and offering a convoluted process to opt out of these recommendations, Microsoft showcases a lack of consideration for user autonomy. It begs the question: why force users to jump through hoops to avoid something they never asked for in the first place?

More ads on the way: Settings home page next

But it’s not only the Start Menu which is slated to be inundated with ads. In the latest build released to the Windows 11 Insider Dev channel, alongside fixes and improvements, Microsoft has introduced a new ad slot on the Settings homepage promoting its Game Pass subscription service . This recommendation card will be displayed for users who actively play games on their PC and are signed into Windows with their Microsoft account.

Source: Ghacks

For now, the ad slot is only rolling for those who have agreed to “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available.”

Microsoft’s aggressive approach to advertising

It’s not the first time Microsoft has been caught implementing questionable advertising practices. In March, Windows users reported noticing “malware-like” pop-ups in Google Chrome prompting them to switch to Bing on WIndows 10 and Windows 11 .

Source: Reddit

Last year, in a bid to prevent users from downloading Google Chrome, Microsoft went as far as injecting a compulsory pop-up poll in its Edge browser that prompted users to answer questions about why they were considering an alternative before they could proceed with the download.

In 2020, Microsoft users reported instances where Microsoft’s then new Chromium Edge browser was automatically installed via Windows updates, overriding their preferences and intruding upon their desktops without consent .

So, the aggressive in-your-face advertising tactics regardless of user wishes seems to be Microsoft’s tried and true MO at this point.

AdGuard to block Start Menu ads

As part of our commitment to give users more control over their OS experience, AdGuard will soon release an update to the AdGuard for Windows app that addresses the issue of ads infiltrating the Start menu in Windows 11 . We are also working on approaches to banish ads from Settings home page. These updates, when released, will empower users by effectively blocking these intrusive ads and restoring the tab to a clutter-free state for smoother user experience and navigation.

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