“Ad blocker” is a catchall term for any kind of software or hardware that removes ads from a webpage. For most people, it takes the form of browser extensions such as AdBlock or Adblock Plus, which are nearly effortless to install on Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers. Some ad blocker makers have also made dedicated mobile ad blocking browsers. Why do people use these things? The funny thing about ad blocking is that it vastly improves the Web-browsing experience. Most modern Web pages are a mess of third-party analytics, plug-ins and advertising tags, which together weigh down publishers’ pages. Ad blocking prevents all of those elements from loading, which not only speeds up page load times but also cuts back on the number of things vying for readers’ attention. There are also privacy benefits to running ad blockers, as the software also prevents third-party tracking tags from loading and following people across sites. In other words, for the user, there’s almost no downside to running an ad blocker. To read more about ad blocking: digiday.com/publishers/wtf-ad-blocking/