Apple will soon allow users to block ads on Safari on their iPhones and iPads.
In very exciting news for most people, but troubling for many companies, the soon to be released iOS 9 will allow content blocking extensions, which can interfere with cookies, images and pop-up ads, to be added to the Safari browser, as the BBC reports.
This could well mean no more full-screen pop-up ads or YouTube video ads that are longer than the actual video you want to watch.
An estimated one in 20 internet users already use some form of ad-blocking software on their computers, but this number is substantially lower on smartphones, where no efficient application has been available previously.
The only way to do this before was to ‘jailbreak’ an iPhone, but now these extensions will be up for download easily from the App Store.
Meanwhile, the creator of Adblock Plus is loudly bragging that it has beaten Apple to the punch in this department, releasing its own iOS browser that blocks ads today.
With many advertisers increasingly kicking up a fuss over the widespread use of ad-blocking technology on computers, the imminent advent of it on smartphones will ensure this noise only becomes louder.
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Denham Sadler is a former editor of StartupSmart. He was previously a journalist at the publication and has worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, the Saturday Paper and the ABC. In his spare time he likes puns and jaffles.
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