Some say that the “price” we have to pay for getting free apps and online services is that we would have to make do with those annoying mobile ads that pop up occasionally or are even part of the app/browsing experience. But good thing, some of the products are actually helping us to get rid of this digital ad clutter. The Yandex browser is one of those, and they have added support for 3rd party ad blocking extensions.
Yandex may not be that popular of a mobile web browser on this side of the world, but in Russia, it has around five million daily users. They already had a built-in ad-blocking tech already, but now they’re releasing an API for web developers who would want to create content filtering software for the browser. This is also so that users may have more control over what they want to see and not see on their browser, at least when it comes to ads and promoted content.
Finding a “balanced solution” for users, publishers, and advertisers is the goal of opening up the browser to 3rd party ad blockers, at least according to a spokesperson from Yandex. Data security and privacy issues have also contributed to the increase in the usage of ad-blocking software. On the other side of the fence, tracking technologies and targeted advertising have also gained traction. Now finding the balance between these two is a little bit tricky.
Yandex currently supports 3rd party blockers like Adguard Blocker and AdBlock Fast. But now that their Content Blocker API is open, expect more to be added to this list.
VIA: Tech Crunch
