Study: 93% Know About Ad Blockers, Yet Only 19% Find Them Completely Effective

Ever since websites have started getting ads, many consumers have started using Ad Blockers, especially on YouTube to block ads. Recently, YouTube also rolled out a crackdown on ad blockers, which made consumers look for alternatives for ad blockers. All About Cookies conducted a survey on the number of people who use ad blockers, and how effective ad blockers are.

According to the study, 93% of the respondents knew about ad blockers while only 19% of them said that ad blockers are completely effective. It was also found that 33% of the respondents have never used ad blockers on their mobile phones and computers. Many websites request turning off ad blockers but 20% of the people who were surveyed admitted that they never turn off ad blockers despite requests from websites. For the websites that solely rely on ad revenues, 52% of the respondents said that they do not feel guilty for visiting those sites with ad blockers on. Only 5% say that they turn off ad blockers if a website asks them to.

Ad blockers have been growing in popularity with video streaming platforms like YouTube. Consumers do not want to get interrupted by ads while watching videos so they use ad blockers. 93% of the people who use the internet are familiar with ad blocker software while 66% of them know how to use them effectively. 27% of the internet users do not understand ad blockers completely while 8% of them have never heard of ad blockers in their lives.

People use ad blockers differently like some using free or paid versions or some using them on their mobiles or laptops. Most of the internet users use free ad blockers with only one in ten using the paid version. The use of ad blockers is higher on computers or laptops (68%) than it is on mobile phones (50%).

In addition to blocking ads, some ad blockers can protect the devices from some harmful virus or malware and can also protect the privacy of users. When asked why people use ad blockers, 71% of them said that they use it to block ads while 59% said that they use it to protect their devices against malware and viruses. 54% want to protect their privacy online and that’s why they use ad blockers.

The study also asked internet users if they have stopped watching a video or skipped a website because of ads, to which 67% answered yes while 33% said no. Many websites and apps like YouTube have introduced its premium services which do not make users see ads if they subscribe to it in exchange of some fee. 58% of the internet users said they do not want to pay subscription fee to avoid ads while 42% said they will pay for a subscription if it means they will no longer see ads during browsing.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World