You can now use Adblock Plus on your iPhone
The creators of Adblock Plus, the most popular ad-blocking software on the web, have released a stand-alone mobile browser for iPhones and iPads.
The beta version of this “Adblock Browser” has been available on Android since May, but had not been publicly launched for iOS until now.
The browser not only blocks ads, but also purports to protect users from malware, as well as conserving their battery life and data usage, according to The Verge.
The mobile browser works similarly to Adblock Plus’ web plugins, where users can block all ads or create a “whitelist” of sites to allow advertising on — presumably those who they want to support with ad revenue.
Ad-blocking on mobile has been in the news recently, with Apple announcing that iOS 9 — whose release date will likely be revealed tomorrow — will allow ad-blocking for the first time ever.
And the release of this browser also comes just as YouTube has begun to actively punish users using ad-blocking software. As NeoWin reports, if YouTube detects that someone using the Google Chrome web browser is also using Adblock Plus (or other popular ad-blocking software), it removes the option to skip the pre-roll advertisements that sometimes precede videos.
Normal viewers get the option to skip these advertisements after a few seconds, but Chrome users with Adblock Plus have to sit through the entire advertisement, which can sometimes be three minutes long.
The number of people using ad-blocking software has increased dramatically over the last year, up 41% to 198 million monthly active users. This represents only 6% of the global web populations, but it's expected to cost publishers more than $21.8 billion in lost ad revenue in 2015. That’s a hefty 14% of global advertising spending.
And by 2016, PageFair and Adobe say the cost of ad blocking will balloon to $41.4 billion.
You can download Adblock Browser for iPhone over at the App Store.
SEE ALSO: Ad blocking has grown 41% in the past year and it's costing publishers tens of billions of dollars
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