Asus to ship its smart devices with Adblock Plus integration

Asus will integrate the functionality of Adblock plus into its mobile devices. This makes the company the first to enter into such a partnership with Adblock Plus developer Eyeo, offering a product with ‘out of the box’ ad blocking functionality.

According to Motherboard, Adblock Plus will become part of Asus’s proprietary browser on its mobile devices. The devices come with the browser pre-installed and set as the default option for viewing web pages. The Adblock Plus feature is also enabled by default. The Google Play Store reports that the browser currently has between 10 and 50 million installs and Motherboard comes with an estimate of 15 million. As with other forms of Adblock Plus, ads on the ‘acceptable ads’ list are allowed through. Advertisers may have to pay to get on this list. As of early 2016, Asus will start distributing smart devices with the Adblock-capable browsers pre-installed.

In a statement to Motherboard, Adblock head and founder Till Farida said he is “very pleased with the new partnership with Asus” and that this is “another cry for innovation from advertisers – one that gets louder every day”. Adblock Plus developer Eyeo has now also released its own browser for Android and iOS that can block ads. In addition, since the release of iOS 9, it has been possible to develop ad-blocking browser plugins for the Safari browser. Due to adblocking, online media that partly or completely depend on advertising revenues can find themselves in financial difficulties.