Adblock Plus
Ranked 12 of 16 ad blockers by recommenders
Works well out of the box for common ads and is free, though critics say its acceptable ads policy means it doesn't reliably block everything.
Works well out of the box for common ads and is free, though critics say its acceptable ads policy means it doesn't reliably block everything.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 41%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works fine on most ads
“For everything else AdBlock Plus works fine.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “TIME Is Serving AI Bots a Different Website, with Ads Built In” “ABP works for the most common of these too”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “TIME Is Serving AI Bots a Different Website, with Ads Built In”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Acceptable ads policy lets advertisers in
“It was basically the standard until they started allowing advertisers to pay to not have their ads blocked.”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Edge, Opera to follow” “"acceptable ads" policy is what caused the shift from AdBlock Plus to uBlock Origin”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker” “ABP was dead the moment they sold out to "responsible" ads.”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?” - Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Apparently Google hates us now”
Doesn't reliably block all ads
“abp is not to be trusted to reliably block all ads it could”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?” “abp in firefox doesn't really remove them”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?” Breaks some sites and videos
“And AdBlock Plus interferes with it, so I have to pause blocking to even see the human check dealio.”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “Egg Intake and the Incidence of Alzheimer's Disease in Adventist Health Study-2” “abp stopped playing videos for me”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled”
Other ad blockers people recommend
The four most recommended other ad blockers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| uBlock Origin | 765 | 71 | 92% | 13 | 2 yrs9 owners | Approved |
| uBlock Origin Lite | 148 | 65 | 69% | 12 | 1 yr5 owners | Approved |
| AdGuard | 78 | 8 | 91% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Wipr 2 | 41 | 7 | 85% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Adblock PlusThis page | 7 | 10 | 41% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
16 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“there are good system-wide ad blocking tools you can get”
“abp is not to be trusted to reliably block all ads it could”
“ABP was dead the moment they sold out to "responsible" ads.”
“abp in firefox doesn't really remove them”
“I've never heard back about any trouble”
“"acceptable ads" policy is what caused the shift from AdBlock Plus to uBlock Origin”
“Ever since Google neutered ABP with this move”
“ABP works for the most common of these too”
“For everything else AdBlock Plus works fine.”
“marketing company loves thing that breaks real ad blocking”
“It was basically the standard until they started allowing advertisers to pay to not have their ads blocked.”
“Users rioted because ABP did a terrible job at managing the situation”
“to the users, a truce with advertisers!?!?”
“And AdBlock Plus interferes with it, so I have to pause blocking to even see the human check dealio.”
“with all of these work out of the box”
“abp stopped playing videos for me”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.