Back in March 2016, Opera Software rolled out native ad blocking to the developer version of Opera Browser. It now appears they’ve done all the tweaks needed to run the feature smoothly and have now pushed native ad blocking to the stable version of the browser (Opera 37).
This feature is available on both Opera for Computers and Opera Mini for Android. The company says users can now browse faster and smoother with the ad blocked; pages will load 40% faster since ads will not be loading alongside.
This feature will also be useful for users on a limited data plan. When ads do not load, you save on data; that in addition to Opera Turbo (data compression technology) that is said to reduce users’ bandwidth consumption already; sometimes by up to 90%.
The company further says that with its native ad blocker, users browsing speed increase by up to 45% when compared to other 3rd party ad-blockers.
How to activate the Native Ad-Blocker on Opera Browser
Desktop
Go to Settings, and click the check-box next to Block ads
How to unblock Ads on a particular site on Desktop
Click on the shield icon displayed at the furthest end to your right on the Omni-bar (search and address bar) and flip off the switch.
Opera Mini
Click the ‘O’ logo on your Opera Mini, then tap data-savings summary. If on Android, you’ll see the Block ads option under both savings modes while on iOS it is available under the Opera Turbo savings mode. Toggle the ‘Block ads’ on or off as you need.
Why Opera native Ad-Block (or any other ad-blocker) is a bad idea
The internet is free to most users because content producers hosted on various sites make money by serving ads on their various platforms. As a user, blocking ads means you are choking revenues for content producers and in the long run they may not afford to produce their content anymore in as far as support from ad revenues go.
Online publishers will be forced to look for other ways to monetize their sites. Alternatively, they could block access to users browsing with ad-blocking extensions installed on their browsers. One of the most notable content producers who are already doing so is Forbes. If you want to view Forbes site, you must disable ad-blocker, and it will not be surprising if more content producers do the same.