How to Block Ads on Websites

Published on: December 23, 2024

2 min read

Tracking and customized advertisements have become a commonplace aspect of web surfing. You may see many types of advertisements while browsing.

Page push advertisements. It immediately redirects to other websites.
Advertisements with direct links. Automatically redirects upon clicking.
Video advertisements. Advertisements that are shown before, during, or after internet videos.
Push notification advertisements. Promotional notifications for goods or services.
Pop-up ads: Advertisements that launch as distinct windows overlaying the current page.
Banners. Visual or banner advertisements are shown on websites.
Native advertisements. Advertisements crafted to integrate well with the adjacent material.
In-text advertisements. Hyperlinked terms in site text that display relevant advertisements.
Pop-under advertisements. Advertisements that launch in new browser windows behind the active window.

The advertisements may differ in style and dimensions, and their availability is contingent upon the websites accessed and the advertising networks used. In this tutorial, we explain why you might want to block ads on your browser and how easy it is to block ads with Zenarmor for all devices on your network.

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Why You Need Ad Blocking

Websites and marketers monitor our activities to gather data for targeted advertising and several other objectives. To address this issue, there are techniques to inhibit online monitoring and advertisements in your web browser to protect your privacy and enhance your surfing experience.

Preventing online monitoring and advertisements may provide several advantages, such as increased privacy, greater browsing speed, and less data use. Improved privacy is attained by obstructing websites from monitoring your online behavior. Enhanced surfing performance is achievable if advertisements and tracking scripts are not loaded, hence decreasing the volume of data delivered. A decrease in data consumption transpires as a result of fewer advertisements and tracking scripts being loaded, hence using less data.

Some reasons for thinking about ad blocking are listed below.

Enhanced privacy and security: Certain advertisements may monitor your online behavior and gather personal information, thus jeopardizing your privacy. Blocking advertisements mitigates the danger of data gathering and targeted advertising while preventing viruses.
Enhanced browsing experience: Advertisements may be obtrusive and interrupt your online activities, hindering your ability to concentrate on the subject of interest.
Accelerated page loading: Advertisements may considerably impede page loading speeds, particularly when they have auto-playing videos. Blocking advertisements might enhance the speed and responsiveness of your surfing experience.
Minimized bandwidth use. Blocking advertisements might save your data use, particularly if you own a restricted or throttled Internet connection.
Reduced distractions. Removing advertisements from your browser experience enables you to focus on the material you really want to see, free from irrelevant or intrusive advertisements. Utilizing ad blockers enables a distraction-free surfing experience that prioritizes your interests.

In conclusion, eliminating intrusive advertisements, such as pop-ups and banners, facilitates a cleaner and more streamlined interface while reducing the danger of virus exposure. Zenarmor, renowned for its effective ad-blocking features and emphasis on user security, emerges as a trustworthy choice for your network. Enhance your browsing experience by using effective ad-blocking methods for increased safety and enjoyment.

Adblocking with Zenarmor

Adblocking and tracker blocking may be implemented across your whole network. This enables any internet-enabled device on your network to benefit from adblocking protection when connected to it. Based on your requirements, you may have the capability to obstruct certain domains recognized as hostile or as sources of intrusive telemetry or data transmission with Zenarmor.

After installing Zenarmor on your BSD-based or Linux-based gateway and completing the initial configuration, you may quickly enable the adblocking feature on all Zenarmor editions, including Free.

By following the next steps, you may easily enable adblocking on your network using Zenarmor.

Navigate to the Policies page on your Zenarmor node.
Click on the policy name, such as Default, that you want to configure. This will open the policy configuration window at the right side of the page.
Navigate to the App Controls tab.
Click on the Ad Tracker and Ads toggle bar to block ads and ad tracker applications.

Figure 1. Blocking Ads/Ad Tracker Apps
Navigate to the Web Controls tab.
Click on the Category Based Controls.

Figure 2. Category Based Web Controls
Select either Moderate Control web profile or High Control web profile to block advertisements on your network.

Figure 3. Selecting Web Profile
Click Apply Changes to activate settings.

Testing and Viewing Blocked Ads Traffic

Advanced reporting capabilities of Zenarmor allow you to view network traffic sessions in real time via Live Sessions Explorer. For testing purposes, you may surf the Internet for a while by visiting several news or shopping sites or visiting https://canyoublockit.com/testing/ site. You should see the Adblocker Test page similar to the one below.

Figure 4. Adblocker Test page

Then, follow the next steps to view blocked ads traffic.

Navigate to the Live Sessions page on your Zenarmor node.
Click on the Blocks tab to see blocked session details. You should see sessions that have Block Signature with Ads, Ad Tracker, or Advertisements.
You may apply the filter by the Blocked Signature field. To apply a filter, find Ads, Ad Tracker, or Advertisements in the Blocked Signature column and click on them. This will display a popup menu.
Click on the Filter option. This will automatically apply the filter to the Live Sessions Explorer.

Figure 5. Blocked Ads Sessions
Click on the magnifying glass icon to view the session details.

Figure 6. Blocked Ads Session Details
Similarly, you may also view ads traffic on charts by navigating to the Reports menu on Zenarmor UI.

Figure 7. Zenarmor Reports
Go to App Categories Breakdown chart and find the Ads or Ad Tracker app category.
Hover your mouse over the app category that you want to filter, such as Ad Tracker.

Figure 8. Filtering App Category on Chart
Click Filter button. This will automatically apply the filter you selected to the charts.
You may view the statics of applications that you filter, like Ad Tracker or Ads, on Apps Breakdown chart.

Figure 9. Filtered Reports
You may click on the chart pie that you want to apply a filter, such as Facebook Tracker on Apps Breakdown chart. This will open a drop-down menu including Filter, Exclude, and Live Sessions options.

Figure 10. Drill down
Click the Filter button. This will apply your filter to the current report page. If you click the Live Sessions button, connections for the filtered app traffic will be displayed in the Live Session Explorer window.

Figure 11. Filtered live sessions