I’ve flipped back and forth about using adblocking extensions/services for years now. I want and believe in supporting the sources I rely on for news and entertainment. At the same time I also want to keep myself secure, private, and energy efficient. I’m by no means against advertisements as sometimes they can be relevant, informative, and even sometimes useful in finding something I’d like to purchase.

There are frustrations that come with not using an adblocker in the form of staggeringly slow loading, choppy experiences when attempting to read what’s supposed to be a simple article. I will whitelist quite a few sites however if they’ve proven to not have heaps more ads disrupting the flow of an article, randomly shifts content around as it loads, or slows my device down.

My current setup is utilizing:

ublock Origin

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en-US

ublock Origin Extra (optional, but I keep it around for now)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin-extra/pgdnlhfefecpicbbihgmbmffkjpaplco?hl=en-US

And appreciate the blocking Privacy Badger ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp?hl=en-US ) does.