uBlock Origin vs. Adblock Plus – Which one is better?

What are adblockers?

As the name indicates, an adblocker is a software program that helps you to block the ads that keep appearing on your website. Sometimes, when you browse the internet, you may see unnecessary and irritating ads appearing on your screen and blocking your content. The adblocker helps you block this ad so that you can continue to browse the website, without any interruptions.

Now, you can bid goodbye to all those irrelevant and inappropriate ads that appear out of nowhere, much to your embarrassment and irritation. Adblockers come with inbuilt rules that users can customize as per their convenience to block ads that they don’t find suitable. As a user, you can use these rules directly or customise them so that you can block specific ads that you don’t like.

In this article, we will tell you more about the pros and cons of blocking ads. We will also give you a comparative analysis of two of the famous adblockers used today – Ublock Origin and Adblock Plus. Keep reading this article to know more about blocking ads.

Pros and Cons of blocking ads

One of the very common questions that you may have in your mind is “What are the benefits of blocking ads?” There is no straightforward answer to this question as it depends on what your role is, concerning the ads. Are you an internet user or the advertiser or the publisher?

As a user, you may realise that blocking ads gives you the freedom to browse your website, the way you want by blocking unnecessary content. You will enjoy browsing content seamlessly without any disturbing ads that keep popping up in between.
As an advertiser or a publisher, though, you may feel bogged down by these ad blockers. If you are an advertiser, you would see the adblocker feature as a bane. This is because you spend a lot of money in placing your ads on the relevant website, but eventually, it gets ignored or blocked by the users.

Here are some of the generic pros and cons that you should know about blocking ads:

Pros

It helps you browse the website seamlessly without any disturbances
It saves your time because sometimes an ad plays entirely before you can proceed to read the content; with this feature, you can now block the ads and read the content without any time delays
Your system’s battery life improves because it doesn’t have to load time-consuming, long, video-enabled ads anymore
Websites open quickly on your systems without any loading or buffering problems because they don’t have to open any ads

Cons

Sometimes Adblockers can cut off your access to other video-based sites such as YouTube
In the process of blocking unnecessary or irritating advertisements, you miss out watching the useful and meaningful ads as well
It affects advertisers very badly as their business takes a hit when you block an announcement that they have put a lot of money and effort on
Two very popular adblockers used today are the uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus. Let’s take a closer look at both of these features in the following sections.

What is uBlock Origin?

The uBlock feature is an open-source ad blocker extension that you can use for blocking ads and filtering the content of a website, according to the way you want to see it. This feature is currently available for Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari, Chromium, and Edge.

When you use this feature, you can enjoy the following benefits:

Block all pop-ups, ads, and trackers and Browse your content without any hassles.
Helps the website to load content faster because it doesn’t have the burden of running the ads
Enables you to block strange videos and creepy tracking done on your system if any

One of the best features of uBlock Origin is that there is a dedicated team working on it to release frequent updates. This way, you can be sure of using the latest version of the adblocker to prevent all the annoying ads. The newest version of uBlock Origin contains all the updated algorithms and rules of blocking ads; therefore, you can be assured that it will help you do a great job in obliterating the disturbances.

What is Adblock Plus?

The Adblock Plus is an open-source browser extension compatible with various browsers such as Chrome, Firefox (both computer and mobile), Internet Explorer, Safari, Yandex Browser, Microsoft Edge and Opera. It is also available for the Android platform, currently. When you download Adblock Plus, you get to enjoy the following benefits:

Get rid of pop-ups, videos, flashing banners and other annoying/disturbing ads that don’t allow you to browse your content seamlessly
Disable all types of tracking systems and enjoy safe browsing
Reduces the risk of malvertising infections, which are nothing but objectionable ads that tend to spread the virus in your system
You can use the Acceptable Ads feature to have control over the ads that you want to see and don’t want to see

UBlock Origin vs Adblock Plus

From the above points, you must have understood that both the uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus are browser extensions that allow you to block ads and improve your website-viewing experience. Which is the better of the two? Given a choice to use adblockers, which one should you choose? Keep reading to know more.

If you are looking for an adblocker that is not only effective but also efficient, the Adblock Plus is the right choice for you. This is because the original version of this feature was released in 2002, but was published by 2010.

On the other hand, the uBlock Origin is entirely new, and it was launched only in the year 2015, and it was split into two – uBlock and uBlock Origin. Since it is unique, it doesn’t enjoy the broad fan base and loyalty that Adblock Plus enjoys.

Installation procedure

https://adblockplus.org/ is the link that you need to visit for downloading the Adblock Plus browser extension. This website detects your browser type accordingly and downloads the correct file.

However, when you click on https://www.ublock.org/, the process isn’t the same, because this will take you to uBlock and not uBlock Origin. You have to search for the file separately along with the browser that you are using. For example, you need to use search using these terms – uBlock Origin, Chrome, to get the desired file for upload.

Browser support

Adblock Plus supports browsers such as Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Firefox, Yandex, Safari Marathon, and Internet Explorer along with being compatible with Android and iOS platforms as well.

The uBlock Origin is available on Android and iOS platforms. However, it supports only limited browsers such as Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Chromium, Safari and Microsoft Edge only.

System Drain

The AdBlock Plus is an old system; therefore, it creates a lot of drain on your system’s performance and battery life, when you use them.

The uBlock Origin, however, is an advanced system and it is designed in such a way that it can handle large ads as well with ease. It will not give you any loading or buffering issues.

Blocking Ads

The Adblock Plus does help you block an ad that you don’t want; however, sometimes, you may see the same an appearing on the system. This is because this extension has the Acceptable Ads by default.

The uBlock Origin, on the other hand, doesn’t have this feature and it blocks every single ad that you have selected

Similarities

The features mentioned above are the differences between the uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus. However, there are also lots of standard features between these two. They are:

Cost – Both these ad-blocking browser extensions are available online free of cost.
Customizations – Both the extensions give you enough filtering options so that you can browse the content of the website without any disturbances
Interface – The uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus have almost the same interface. When you block a particular ad, both these extensions tell you how many ads you have blocked totally using them. Also, they are very easy to navigate as they come with a simple and minimalistic design.

Which one is the better choice?

The uBlock Origin is the better choice of the two because of these reasons:

It is the latest ad-blocking browser extension, and therefore it is more up to date with the blocking rules
There are constant updates available on this extension, thanks to which you can be assured of blocking all annoying ads, pop-ups, trackers and other videos to enjoy hassle-free browsing

Some other popular adblockers that are worth trying :

Adguard
Ghostery

We hope after reading this article, you would have got a clear idea of what adblocker tools are and what they do to enhance your website browsing experience. Try out both uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus on your system, before you take the final call as to which one is right for you.’