ASUS to add built-in ad blocking to its default mobile browser

Blocking advertisements is pretty easy to do on just about any device that you own, whether we’re talking about your smartphone or your computer. If you happen to buy an Asus smartphone sometime next year, though, ad blocking will be easier than ever. According to a report from Motherboard, AdBlock Plus will be “baked in” to ASUS’ own mobile browser starting early 2016. These ad blocking features will be turned on by default for all users.

While blocking ads by default in the built-in browser might be a tad controversial, it’s worth noting that the ASUS Browser has a relatively small user base – ‘only’ 15 million estimated users. This is compared to the hundreds of millions of folks out there using other browsers on their mobile devices, and this essentially has no effect on the users who immediately head to the Play Store to download Google Chrome or Firefox for their browsing needs.

AdBlock Plus co-founder and CEO Till Faida says:

We’re extremely happy to team up with ASUS, the first major hardware manufacturer to integrate ad blocking into their mobile devices. This is another call for innovation in the ad industry—a call getting louder by the day.

It’s not clear at this time as to when these changes will take place, though we do know it will happen sometime in early 2016. What are your thoughts? Are you okay with adblocking software being turned on by default, or is this wrong? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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