Adblock for Chrome sold, joins Adblock Plus’ Acceptable Ads program

Eyeo stated that “Adblock Plus for iOS works in the mobile version of Safari and will help save data, protecting yourself from malvertising, enhancing your privacy, and saving your battery”.

The maker of a competing ad-blocking browser extension has joined up with the new program created by Eyeo, owner of Adblock Plus, under which an independent board will decide which ads are acceptable to be placed on a whitelist.

Concerns were raised when Adblock Plus started the Acceptable Ads programme, which set down standards for ad blockers that wished to allow advertising through, but was running it autonomously.

It insists that payment does not influence inclusion on the list, and to make that relationship more transparent, early next year it intends to hand management of the whitelist, including deciding and policing the acceptance criteria, to an independent board. About 70 of the largest publishers whose ads are allowed through in this way pay a fee.

Thanks to iOS 9’s new found ability to block unwanted content, including pop-up ads Adblock Plus can be integrated into the platform, though with a few lengthy setting up required to kick start the app.

The only certain thing here is that the money in the ad industry will be shifting around.

“A big reason is transparency, it puts it out in the open and it gets more stakeholders involved”, said Ben Williams, Eyeo’s communications manager.

On the other, a seemingly growing proportion of users have come to the conclusion that web advertising is too intrusive and consumes too much of the resources they pay for, so they have turned to ad blockers to filter out these annoyances. But I did not like the fact that they also control the program, because they are supported by a few Acceptable Ads advertisers.

The forum, where companies fates are decided today, will still play a role. “If you don’t feel you are represented by the user representatives on the board, you will still be able to take part in the process”.

“Adblock Plus for iOS is available for completely free on Apple’s App Store“.

The app has been downloaded more than 400 million times so far, and is said to load web pages faster, save battery life, and can even prevent malware disguised as ads from infiltrating your device.