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First published 3rd June 2026

It used to be, back in the glory days of the wild internet, that to see ads at all was a sign that your computer was riddled with viruses. And that any sites you saw them on were somewhat dodgy.

These days, apparently, ads are everywhere. I say “apparently” because we never see them, but this is what “everybody” says. We had no idea just how intrusive they have become.

So oblivious were we that we were absolutely horrified to learn only recently that YouTube plays minutes-long unskippable ads before, during and after a video! How utterly disgusting is that?

You don’t need to put up with this!
And here is how:

Change your browser!

By all means look into alternatives yourself, but if you don’t know where or how to start, it won’t hurt to start with any of these three — and I personally use all of these by the way, depending on requirements:

All three run on Windows, macOS and Linux, but only Vivaldi and Firefox additionally run on Android and iOS.

Vivaldi has adblocking built-in*, but you will need to install a plugin on LibreWolf or Firefox to do this. uBlock Origin is the go-to one for both without a doubt, but there are others. Both LibreWolf and Firefox come with the option of installing any number of plugins for any kind of customisation and optimisation.

*The adblocking by Vivaldi is very good, and this plus many other already built-in features I like make this my default browser. However, of late I have noticed ads appearing on some recipe sites which obviously use the same WordPress template. When that happens I simply switch to LibreWolf with uBlock Origin installed.

I sincerely hope this makes for you an ad-free internet the way it used to be and still should be.