Opera adds ad-blocker to mobile browser

June 16, 2016 | 12:07

Tags: #ad-blocker #ad-blocking #advertising #opera-browser #opera-mini #opera-mobile #privacy

Companies: #opera

Browser-maker Opera, which once funded development of its software through advertising, is continuing its push to offer users built-in ad-blocking technology with the official roll-out on all supported mobile platforms.

First announced back in March for the desktop release, and disabled by default, Opera's ad-blocking technology is now available on its mobile browser versions for iOS and Windows Phone (where it is known as Opera Mini) and on Android (in the variant called Opera Browser). As with the desktop equivalent, Opera claims that integrating the technology directly into the browser boosts performance and lowers resource usage over the traditional add-on package method - something that will particularly interest those with older-generation smartphones and tablets.

'Users are demanding ad-blockers because of the better browsing experience it offers,' claimed Nuno Sitima, senior vice president for mobile browsers at Opera, of the release. 'Opera users can speed up their mobile surfing, skip extra data charges and stretch their internet packages even further by blocking in the browser intrusive and data-wasting ads and heavy tracking.'

According to Opera's internal testing, enabling the ad-blocker along with the built-in compression proxy - a system which sends all web requests via Opera's servers, where the data is speedily compressed before being sent to the browser - results in an impressive performance gain over rival software: running on the same device, Google's Chrome browser took 14 percent longer to load the test pages while the Adblock Browser took as much as 79 percent longer.

The new browser release is available on each platform's respective application store now, though as with the desktop version ad-blocking support must be enabled manually from the 'O' menu.
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