People who use ad blocking extensions in their web browser do so because they believe it brings them a sense of peace and relief not typically found in normal browsing capacity. In the early days of the web, annoying ad pop-ups often hindered a user’s browsing experience, and while ads have grown to be a lot less intrusive, there are still a good number of advertisers who don’t follow good advertising etiquette.
PageFair and Adobe published a report on Monday that showed that usage of ad blocking software has grown 41 percent worldwide. The total number of active users hovers right around 198 million every month.
Ad Blocking Software Climbs to 198 Million Users
According to Business Insider, the 198 million consumers using ad blocking software only account for about 6 percent of the entire population of the web. However, publishers are expecting to lose at least $21.8 billion in 2015 alone, and that number is predicted to climb up to $41.4 billion by 2016, according to Adobe and PageFair.
Now, these numbers aren’t really fair to quote because it isn’t costing publishers any money to not run advertisements; these massive numbers are purely figurative, which is an important distinction to make.
One graph published in the report illustrates that the growth of ad blocking software really didn’t change much until 2013. From July 2009 to June 2013 the user base grew from 21 million users to 54 million. But from July 2013 to January 2015 the user base exploded from 54 million to 181 million.
Ad Blocking Has Gone Mainstream
Ad blocking software is usually tied to a browser extensions – there is very few ad blocking software that is standalone – so the people behind the software usually aren’t advertising their product. That means that most of the new users probably heard about the software from word of mouth, or simply being fed up enough with ads to do their own research.
Most ad blocking software is developed for desktops and laptops since mobile users need to be jailbroken (iPhones) or rooted (Android phones). But a new change in Apple’s development practices will soon change the playing field for mobile devices. Business Insider also stated that Apple’s Safari browser makes up about 52 percent of all mobile browsing, and features in iOS9 will enable software developers to create ad blocking software, whereas they previously haven’t been able to. Android commands a majority of the market, but is developed by Google, an advertising giant. Google has already removed ad blocking software from the Play Store, so it will be interesting to see if Google announces anything similar for the Android platform.
Users Are Fed Up with Ads
In Adobe and PageFair’s report, they surveyed 400 people in the US about why they have started using ad blocking software. According to them, many users don’t trust the way advertisers and publishers handle their personal information. Younger people believed that there has been an increase in the number of ads shown online, and noted that as the primary reason they’ve began to use ad blockers.
Many ad blockers don’t block all advertisements, however. Non-intrusive ads are usually whitelisted by default, though users can manually choose to block ads on a page with certain software.
Do you use ad blocking software? Let us know in the comments!
