Opera becomes first big browser maker with built-in ad-blocker

The company notes that it’s the first major web browser to have ad-blocking baked in, and is pushing the idea that an integrated system is best (as opposed to a third-party extension) in terms of eking out extra performance and faster browsing.

“Advertising fuels the internet, allowing for many services to be free for users”, said Krystian Kolondra, Opera SVP of Engineering and Head for computers.

With 60 million active monthly users, Opera sits in fifth position on the list of most popular web browsers, far behind the likes of Chrome and Firefox, but there’s every chance that introducing built-in ad blocking could see Opera 37 become a lot more popular than its previous versions.

To verify this “better than extensions” claim, we tested the Opera ad-blocker as well as everybody’s favourite “pay what you want” Ad-blocker and the results follow below.

Opera sees no contradiction in the fact that it relies on advertising for a big chunk of its own revenue but is introducing ad-blocking control features in its products.

So yes Opera’s ad-blocker is faster but only by a margin of two seconds.

The ad-blocking code runs faster natively than it would as an add-on, Kolondra wrote in a blog post about the new browser feature. “We don’t accept it – we want the web to be a better place for us all, as users”, Kolondra added.

You’ll notice that some sites still feature embedded advertising, based on a “whitelist” that Opera used for testing purposes only. However, most advertisers try to convince users to disable ad blocking software. Rivals like Microsoft and Google are not in a rush to bake ad-blockers into their browsers as it would cut into their ad businesses.

According to the company, the use of ad-blocking software grew by 41 percent worldwide and by 48 percent in the USA between the second quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2015, with 98 percent of those users on PCs.

Already ad blockers are being likened to a cartel and publishers like Axel Springer are seeking court-ordered bans on them.

Meanwhile, in Europe, mobile operator Three last month announced that it would start blocking ads at the network level for its units in the United Kingdom and Italy. It is also necessary to give the power to white list websites to users rather than the ad blockers themselves.

The ad blocker is available now in the development release, and is expected to appear in the stable releases in the near future. “We believe this will accelerate the change that the ad industry needs to pursue”, it said. “If ads didn’t take so much time to load, if they weren’t so intrusive, if they were more upfront about the tracking that’s going on, then maybe people wouldn’t feel the need to download an ad blocker on every device that they have”.