The effect of ad blockers

[kexej28769@nongnue]

Some ad blockers block web analytics platforms by default, while others can be configured to do so. I tested Distilled's site with Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin, two of the most popular desktop ad-blocking browser add-ons, but it's worth noting that ad blockers are also becoming increasingly popular on smartphones.

Here is the performance of Distilled's setup:



It seems these adaptive setups didn't do much!

Data lost due to ad blockers: ~10%
Ad blocker usage can range from 15-25% benin number data on the region , but many of these installs will have AdBlock Plus set up by default, which, as we saw above, does not block tracking. Estimates of AdBlock Plus' market share among ad blockers vary from 50-70%, with recent reports leaning more towards the former. So, if we assume that at most 50% of installed ad blockers block analytics, that leaves your exposure at around 10%.

Reason 2: Browser "Do Not Track"
This is another privacy-enhancing feature, this time from the browsers themselves. You can enable it in the settings of most current browsers. Sites or platforms are not required to honor a “Do Not Track” request, but Firefox offers a robust feature under the same set of options, which I decided to test as well.