Opera plans to natively block ads within the desktop browser

Opera Software announced that they’re now going to integrate an ad-blocker within the browser. A native ad-blocker, they claim, improves page-load times and performance over plug-ins.

Ad-blockers have been popping up in the news quite often off late. Sites like Wired and Forbes are already working on systems that prevent access to content if an ad-block script is detected. Microsoft is also probably not allowing plug-ins in their browser for the same reasons. Opera claims to be the first major browser to natively integrate ad-block. They go on to explain that people really want ad-blockers, citing a 2015 Adobe survey that indicates a 41 percent rise in the usage of ad-blocking tools. An increasing concern for user privacy and a quest to speed up page loads has contributed to Opera’s decision to integrate an ad-blocker within the browser. Blocking ads apparently improves page-load times by as much as 45 percent, and sometimes more. “We believe it’s time for ads to be lighter and faster,” said Opera, pointing out that users want lighter ads and that heavy ads are the bane of the web. A sentiment that we whole-heartedly support. Ad-block on Opera will be disabled by default, but you should be able to enable it with a single click. Disabling the ad-block tool on a site will add that site to a whitelist so the blocker will be disabled on these pages even when it’s running. Opera claims to be using EasyList’s lists to block ads. You can download the developer version of Opera here.