How to block ads: The Ultimate 2025 Guide to Blocking Ads on Your Devices

How to block ads: The Ultimate 2025 Guide to Blocking Ads on Your Devices image

Let’s face it: nobody enjoys intrusive, annoying, or interrupting ads when they’re using their devices. Whether you’re browsing the web, watching videos, or playing games, ads seem to pop up everywhere, making your experience more frustrating than enjoyable.

Fortunately, there are several ways to block ads on your devices, some more effective than others. If you’re tired of constant pop-ups and distractions, you’re in the right place.

In this comprehensive 2025 guide, we’ll walk you through the benefits of blocking ads, how to block ads across different devices and apps, and the technologies that make it all possible. Let’s dive in.

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What are the benefits of blocking ads?

Before we get into the different methods of blocking ads, let’s first talk about why you should block them in the first place. Blocking ads can have several significant benefits, from improving your privacy to helping your device run more efficiently.

1. Increased Privacy

Many ads track your online behaviour, collecting data about your browsing habits, searches, and even the apps you use. By blocking ads, you reduce the amount of personal data that advertisers can collect from you, increasing your privacy and making it harder for companies to build detailed profiles of you.

2. Improved Speed

Ads, especially those with heavy multimedia content, can slow down your device and website loading times. By blocking ads, you reduce the number of resources used to load a page, which results in a faster, smoother experience.

3. Less Annoyance

How many times have you been interrupted by an intrusive pop-up or an un-skippable video ad while watching your favourite show? Blocking ads eliminates these distractions, allowing you to enjoy your content without constant interruptions.

4. Better Battery Life for Your Devices

Running ads requires your device to work harder — especially on mobile devices. Ads can drain your battery faster by loading additional resources. By blocking ads, you can extend your device’s battery life, which is particularly important when you’re on the go.

5. Helping the Environment by Reducing Your Energy Consumption

Although it may sound surprising, blocking ads can actually help the environment. Ads consume data and server resources, which, in turn, require more energy. By blocking ads, you’re reducing the amount of data and energy used, contributing to a more sustainable online experience.

How to Block Ads on your iPhone, iPad or Mac

Apple devices, like iPhones, iPads, and Macs, offer several methods for blocking ads, each with its own pros and cons. So when choosing an ad blocker, it’s important to consider:

  • Effectiveness: How well does the ad blocker block ads on different types of content (web pages, apps, games)?
  • Privacy Implications: Does the ad blocker collect data about your browsing activity or usage patterns?
  • Ease of Use: How simple is it to set up and use?
  • Cost: Are there free options, or do you need to pay for a more comprehensive service?

Here are some common techniques to block ads on your Apple devices, evaluating them against the above criteria:

1. Browser Extensions

For web browsers like Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, browser extensions are one of the most popular ways to block ads. These extensions can block pop-ups, banners, and other types of ads that appear while browsing. Some well-known ad blockers for Safari include Magic Lasso Adblock, AdBlock Plus and uBlock Origin.

2. Network Filters

Network filters work by filtering the internet traffic to and from your device, preventing ads from being loaded in the first place. These filters can be configured directly on your device or through your Wi-Fi router, providing ad-blocking across multiple devices on your network.

You may be able to ensure a higher level of privacy when using a Network filter that is installed on your Apple device via the App Store. This is because the filter should declare, in its App Privacy details, if it tracks the sites your visit or the network locations you access.

Network filters work well to block common banner ads across your device but are not as effective at stopping other annoyances such as pop-ups, video ads or YouTube ads. Network filters are also less effective than browser extensions at blocking ads, trackers and annoyances within your web browser.

3. DNS Services

DNS (Domain Name System) services, like NextDNS, can block ads by redirecting requests to known ad-serving domains. This method is effective for blocking a large number of ads on both websites and apps. You can set up these DNS services on each of your devices or holistically on your router.

When using a third-party DNS service you need to be able to trust that they will not record or profile the DNS addresses you access as these are available to the service to record.

Like network filters, DNS services are also less effective than browser extensions at blocking ads, trackers and annoyances within your web browser.

4. VPNs

Some Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) also offer ad-blocking features. These VPNs block ads at the network level by preventing ad requests from reaching your device. Popular VPN services like NordVPN and ExpressVPN may have built-in features that enhance your browsing experience by blocking some ads.

However, the same limitations and privacy considerations as other network level ad blockers also apply to VPNs. A VPN provider can see all of the addresses you visit, so you need to be able to trust that they are not recording or profiling your activity.

How to Block Ads in Safari

Safari, Apple’s default web browser, offers some excellent ways to block ads. The best method is through browser extensions. Safari supports two types of extensions for ad blocking:

1. Content Blocker Extensions

Content blockers are lightweight, privacy-focused extensions that block ads without sending any personal data back to a third party. Examples include Magic Lasso Adblock. These extensions are ideal if you want an ad-free experience without sacrificing your privacy.

2. Web Extensions

Web extensions may be more versatile but may not offer the same level of privacy as content blockers. Due to having greater access to the web pages you are viewing, they may also provide additional features like modifying the behaviour of the pages you visit.

Advanced ad blocking – such as blocking of YouTube video ads in a browser – may also require the use of a Web Extension to function correctly. For example, while Magic Lasso Adblock uses a content blocker extension for ad blocking in most web pages, it also employs an optional web extension to block YouTube video ads.

How to Block Ads on Apps and Games

Blocking ads on apps and games is trickier than blocking ads in web browsers. Many free apps rely on ad revenue to support their development, and blocking ads in these apps might not be as straightforward. Here are a few options:

  • Use a Premium Version: Many apps offer an ad-free experience as part of a paid upgrade.
  • Network-Level Ad Blockers: As mentioned earlier, network filters, DNS services and VPNs can block ads at the network level, which can apply to ads in apps and games as well. These coarser ad blocking approaches may not block all ads in every app and game, but could reduce the amount of ads you see.

How to Block Ads on YouTube

If you’re tired of the un-skippable ads on YouTube, there are two main ways to block them:

  • Ad Blockers: Browser extensions like Magic Lasso work well on YouTube to block video ads.
  • YouTube Premium: Subscribing to YouTube Premium removes ads entirely from the platform.

See our comprehensive guide on How to block YouTube ads to read about all the options, including the costs and pros and cons of each.

Wrapping Up

Blocking ads can drastically improve your device’s performance, privacy, and overall user experience. With so many options available — browser extensions, network filters, DNS services, and VPNs — it’s easier than ever to block unwanted ads and enjoy a smoother, more private browsing experience.

If you’re looking for a reliable ad blocker for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, give Magic Lasso Adblock a try. This lightweight, privacy-focused tool is specifically designed for Safari and provides an effective browser ad-blocking solution while significantly increasing your device’s performance.

By following the techniques outlined in this guide, you can ensure that your devices remain ad-free, giving you the best possible online experience. So why wait? Start blocking ads today and enjoy a cleaner, faster, and more private digital world!

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