Advertisers can now pay to sneak by your ad blocker

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The developer has also removed the in-app purchase upgrade that allowed it to offer the app for free and has chosen to make it a paid application, making it one of the few content blockers in the iTunes Store that don’t come with an in-app purchase based upgrade method.

Advertisers use online advertising tactics for the simple reasons that they work and many content publishers are out of alternatives. At the same time, websites and publishers often depend heavily on advertising revenue in order to make their very existence worthwhile, as the ads pay for the amount of time that is put into maintaining them. Last week, ad blocking on iOS became a reality.

Apple and Facebook, meanwhile, are intensifying efforts to keep users in walled gardens that curate the advertising experience and steer more revenue into their own coffers.

Because Apple is such an influential player in the technology world, their move towards allowing developers the tools to create apps which block ads has caused a stir.

“All of a sudden you’re getting hammered with stuff you’ve got no interest in”, he said.

PageFair, a firm that seeks to counter ad blockers, says worldwide usage of ad blockers grew 41 percent from a year ago to almost 200 million people. Germany sits at 30% while the USA, strangely to me, is only at 15%. At least 16% of internet users in the United States use tools to block advertisements and the numbers are even higher in Europe with Poland’s 39% of internet users blocking web adverts topping the list. The first notable app was Peace, which quickly rose to the top of the App Store. Known as extensions to encoders, these apps provide a necessary filter against the all-too-familiar, irrelevant and annoying pop-up ads.

The only indicator that we have to go by is the 6-year history of AdBlock, which started as a Chrome browser extension and has since grown into the most popular multi-browser web extension ever, with over 40 million users.

Many websites already have countermeasures for ad blockers. These blockers are enabled or disabled through the Safari section of Settings, but if you want to temporarily view a site in the way its makers intended then there’s a quick shortcut.

Mobile users may be glad to hear that iOS and Android version are available, but users in general should be warned about reports in 2013 of the company – ironically – selling its data to advertisers.

All this raises questions about the role of ad-blocking companies.

Ultimately, it appears that just as companies that are serious about the web have learned to do thorough cross-browser and cross-device testing to ensure that their experiences work everywhere, companies may be forced to do thorough testing of their websites using ad blockers.

Ad-blocking has become a huge problem for online publications and other websites that rely on ad revenue.

Perhaps there’s another way – a truce, of sorts.

For businesses looking for new ways to advertise online, there are a number of strategies they can follow. It also helps them keep their wider content free for everyone to enjoy.

“The difference is critical, because what we really need to block is adtech, not all of advertising”.

Apple’s announcement is a big benefit for its users.

“Some of the details aren’t ironed out yet”, Williams said.

“Web ads are dramatically different from prior ad media…”

Meanwhile, the industry group Interactive Advertising Bureau is pushing for “viewable” ads that load only when that part of the page is visible. These sites are free because the journalism and curation we value so highly is funded by ads that pay for it.

Randall Rothenberg, the group’s CEO, called ad-blocking practices “definitely immoral and unethical”, yet he acknowledged that consumers turn to blockers because they are fed up.