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Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018
5-6 April 2018 | Singapore
366 | Page
978-1-5386-2056-4/18/$31.00©2018 IEEE
Adblock Usage in Web Advertisement in Poland
Artur Strzelecki, Edyta Abramek, Anna Sołtysik-Piorunkiewicz
Department of Informatics
University of Economics in Katowice
Katowice, Poland
Email: {artur.strzelecki, edyta.abramek, anna.soltysik-piorunkiewicz}@ue.katowice.pl
Abstract—Research concerning users blocking advertisements
constitutes a new research area both in the scope of analysis of
collected data regarding that topic, determinants concerning
users blocking advertisements and IT tools. The paper refers to
this and systematizes knowledge in the scope of types of online
advertisements and methods for blocking them using an adblock,
and it identifies reasons and main categories of reasons for users
blocking advertisements. The research presented in the paper
was confronted with results of an analysis of application of
adblocks. The obtained results will facilitate conducting further,
more thorough research. Considerations included in the paper
can constitute a set of recommendations for publishers displaying
advertisements on websites and they can be useful for drawing
conclusions and preparing guidelines for projects supporting
sustainable development in the scope of online advertising.
Keywords—Adblock; ads blocking; web advertisement
I. INTRODUCTION
During the early years of development of the internet,
advertisements displayed on websites were not considered as
invasive. Usually, they were presented in the form of static or
dynamic banners which included graphic designs. As
technology developed and IT solutions became more available,
the manner in which advertisements were shown on websites
also developed. Currently, there are numerous new advertising
formats available, most of which are considered as invasive,
i.e. they affect the reception of content displayed in a web
browser. Such advertisement formats include automatically
displayed advertisements, formats of pictures covering the
entire screen or expandable graphic advertisements.
Development of modern technologies on the internet, in
particular tracking the activity of users of web browsers and
displaying advertisements for such users causes an increase of
users’ social interest in the development and use of tools
enabling prevention of tracking and display of advertisements.
This prevents online content from being surrounded with
advertisements which may distract the reader and, at the same
time, scripts tracking web browser user’s activity are turned off
or their operation is limited. These tools ensure that
consumption of online content remains attractive, websites are
not loaded with advertising items and user’s privacy is better
protected. The conducted study is aimed at getting acquainted
with the activity of online browser users in the scope of use of
software which blocks the display of advertisements and limits
the tracking of user’s activity.
Additional programs which may be installed as an
extension of the basic set of functions offered by a web
browser, which add the function of blocking unwanted
advertisements are becoming increasingly popular among
users. Users use such programs not only to block displayed
advertisements but also to improve the protection of data stored
in a web browser and to increase the comfort of use and the
performance of web browsers. Thus, the empirical objective of
the paper is to identify the reasons for blocking online
advertisements. The methodological objective of the paper is to
identify IT technologies supporting advertisement blocking and
criteria for their selection. The practical objective of the paper
is to study adblock usage in Poland based on research.
The three research questions were formulated:
• RQ1: What are the reasons for users blocking
advertisements?
• RQ2: What are the methods for blocking web
advertisements?
• RQ3: What is the state of adblock usage in Poland?
The objectives of the paper were achieved as a result of
application of the following research methodology: study of
literature, comparative analyses of reports and a survey
analysis.
First, we introduce the theoretical justification of the ads
blocking problem and systematize knowledge in the scope of
reasons for blocking online advertisements using an adblock.
Second, we identify methods and tools for blocking
advertisements in web browsers. Adblock programs offer a
broad range of options for adjusting them to user's preferences
and creating one's own set of functions which are launched by
default as well as preferences for blocking advertisements.
Many users use the possibility to configure advertisement
blocking programs and adjust their functions to their
preferences.
Third, we analyze dataset collected through a survey. There
were 774 participants in the exploratory research project. The
participants responded to 14 questions in a survey concerning
the use of software for blocking advertisements (adblock
programs).
The paper contains a literature review, a presentation of
methodology used for the study and an analysis of obtained
results. The paper includes final conclusions from the
conducted study and directions for further research in the area
of blocking displayed advertisements and privacy protection.
Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018
5-6 April 2018 | Singapore
367 | Page
978-1-5386-2056-4/18/$31.00©2018 IEEE
II. RELATED WORK
Over the course of recent years there were several studies
conducted with regard to the use of adblock programs by
internet users. They involved, inter alia, an analysis of legal
measures which can be undertaken by content publishers who
are fighting off the activity of adblock programs. Content
publishers lose advertising income which they could have
generated, if their advertisements were displayed or clicked by
users [28], [11]. Also, the possibility to expand the functions of
extensions for blocking advertisements [13] and the influence
of functions blocking advertisements on battery performance in
mobile devices [16] or a decrease of internet connection load
[15] was examined. The researchers have also studied the
manner in which content publishers detect the use of adblock
programs and how many of them do it [14]. The research also
shows that adblock programs can be used to reduce the
tracking of personal data [3] and do not leave any trace of their
use [17]. Some of the researchers have conducted surveys on
students at a single university [19] or extensive research
involving numerous countries and thousands of respondents
[21], [22]. A state of the art analysis was conducted in 2009 as
well. However, many things have changed since then with
regard to advertisement display technology and development of
user tracking scripts [20].
The characterized advertisements, despite their great
popularity, are no longer as efficient as they used to be during
the initial period of development of the internet. This is mainly
due to the fact that users became resistant to various
“persistent” forms of promotion of products or services.
Reaching potential clients with advertisements is becoming
more complicated and creators of advertisements must consider
limited access through the online marketing channel. Poland is
one of the leaders in the global ranking of countries with the
highest percentage of internet users blocking advertisements
using plugins containing adblock software. A less aggressive
solution with regard to previously used, conventional
advertisements, which addresses the needs of advertisers, is
native advertising, i.e. interesting and unobtrusive advertising
material intertwined with the content of an article posted on a
blog, in social media or on a website.
III. SYSTEMATIZATION
A. Identification of Factors Determining the Adblock Usage
Blocking advertisements is a complex problem in the
contemporary world, which requires the following:
• Firstly, aspects connected with privacy [3], security
[30], user experience (pace of work, comfort, quality
and other factors) [15], [19] as well as economic aspects
should be integrated.
• Secondly, the issue of balance between them and
advertisements should be analyzed.
Thus, it is necessary to mention the sustainable
development theory (the term was defined for the first time in a
report of the World Commission for Environment and
Development at the UN: Our Common Future in 1987 [18]),
because it is not about publishers and users “getting in each
other's way”, but rather about them starting to cooperate with
each other. Their common good should motivate such
activities.
Numerous discussions among internet users include
descriptions of cases [10] in which website publishers tried to
prevent users from blocking advertisements, e.g.
• On the basis of legal regulations (online publishers
wanted to introduce a ban on users blocking
advertisements using programs for blocking them by
invoking the right to maintain the integrity of their work
or, in other words, the right to inviolability of content
and form of their work. The act of blocking
advertisements was interpreted as introducing changes
to the work) [28], [11].
• By establishing cooperation with creators of programs
for blocking advertisements (the cooperation allowed
the publishers to create advertisements which users
were unable to filter). To use an adblock, it needs to be
installed first, and then a filter subscription must be
added.
According to the sustainable development principle, the
following principles should be thus adopted:
• Publishers and users, as well as advertisers should
jointly attempt to guarantee the best solutions by
ensuring that none of the components constitutes a
threat to others.
• Publishers should use users' knowledge and experience
and propose advertisements, if they constitute their
source of income, but they need to ensure that they do
not disturb user's work and allow users to decide what
they want to view and which form suits them as well as
to choose their form.
• Appropriate conditions should be ensured to allow users
to perceive advertisements in a manner different than
the current one (as invasive, ubiquitous, badly adjusted,
not interesting, harassing and heavy on processing
power).
Relationships between factors of the problem being the
blocking of advertisements by internet users are nonlinear and
they are in the form of feedback loops. On the one hand, there
are website owners who want users to avoid blocking
advertisements. They offer free access to their content but
expect users to view advertisements apart from the primary
content. The number of views of the publisher's website grows,
just as advertising income grows (positive feedback). Viewing
advertisements in that case can be considered as a type of an
online currency. Advertisements allow publishers to generate
income. However, some users do not want to view
advertisements, and thus they block them. If users block
advertisements, publishers are forced to introduce paid access
to content (negative feedback). As the number of website
visitors drops, its popularity decreases, and thus publishers
receive fewer advertising orders. To undertake activities aimed
at compensating for the negative feedback, one should identify
reasons for blocking advertisements.
Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018
5-6 April 2018 | Singapore
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978-1-5386-2056-4/18/$31.00©2018 IEEE
Fig. 1. Motivation behind adblock usage [22].
Fig. 2. Usage of ad blocking software in selected European countries [21],
[22].
According to PageFair-2017 report [22], the main reason
for blocking advertisements using an adblock was security
(Fig. 1). Women usually mentioned that they were afraid of
viruses and malware. On the other hand, men claimed that the
greatest nuisance was the interference of advertising in
continuous browsing of online content. Over 70% of
respondents chose more than one reason as “the most important
one” in connection with their use of an adblock. Apart from
security and interference, users' motivation was not
significantly different with regard to users' age.
The largest number of internet users in Europe who block
advertisements is in Greece, Poland and Germany (Fig. 2).
According to PageFair's report [21], [22], the index for
Poland in 2015 amounted to 34,9%, while in 2017 it maintains
the level of 33%. Apparently, the reason for this phenomenon
is that websites are overloaded with advertisements. Users who
do not like advertisements simply block them in advance.
Others indicate protection of their privacy and security as the
reason for doing so.
The general conclusion of the reports was as follows: the
growing use of adblock programs is fuelled by particular
problems connected with provision of online advertisements by
publishers rather than digital advertising itself. It was
interesting that it was indicated that users do not mind
advertisements as such, and they are bothered rather by their
aggressive form, such as a sudden sound or an advertisement
suddenly covering the browsed content and, additionally, the
advertisement not allowing to be skipped or closed. The
obtained results allow us to evaluate which problems are most
frequently faced by users when advertisements are displayed.
Users increasingly frequently care for privacy of their data
and confidentiality of their online activities, and due to that
personalised advertisements are perceived as a threat, while
aggressive advertisements or those which put them at risk of
additional costs (using data transmission packages), are simply
blocked. Therefore, it is necessary to look for new ways for
users to stop blocking advertisements.
B. Methods for Blocking Online Advertisements
To counteract the growing trend of invasive advertising,
software developers have independently started creating
additional solutions for already existing basic web browser
functions [13]. Their objective is to block advertisements
displayed on the currently opened website. Such web browser
extensions are configured by default (without any modification
required on the part of the user), and thus they do not block
some formats of advertisements displayed on websites. This
concerns advertisements which are referred to as nonintrusive
ones [12].
Nonintrusive advertisements meet certain criteria
regarding: location, contrast and size of the advertising unit
[29]. The location means that the advertisement cannot disturb
the natural reading process. The advertisement must be above,
beside or under the primary content. Contrast means that an
advertisement must stand out from the remaining content and
be recognizable as an advertisement. It should be marked with
the word “advertisement” or its equivalent. Size means that the
amount of space occupied by an advertisement above the line
break cannot exceed 15%. Also, the surface occupied by the
advertisement below the line break can amount to 25% at most
[5].
An example of nonintrusive advertisements is
advertisements in search engine search results. The
advertisements appear only after a user enters a query in the
search engine and receives results. Such a set of advertisements
is usually connected with the query entered by the user. Large
companies (e.g. Google) providing advertisements pay for such
advertising units not being blocked in their advertising
networks. Other large companies which pay for being included
on the list of acceptable advertisements are Microsoft, Amazon
and Taboola advertising network. One of such companies
anonymously stated that it pays for not blocking them approx.
30% of what it earns on them being displayed [9].
The most common web browser plugins which block
advertisements currently include AdBlock, Adblock Plus,
uBlock and uBlock Origin. The common term for such web
browser plugins is adblock software.
• AdBlock [2] is currently being developed by a group of
programmers and maintained using user donations.
AdBlock is available for users of the following web
browsers: Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox and Edge.
Currently, it is being used by 40 million users.
• Adblock Plus [1] is developed by Eyeo GmbH and it is
available for the following web browsers: Firefox,
Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer and their
Android and iOS versions. The Adblock Plus extension
does not block nonintrusive advertisements by default.
The extension is active on over 100 million devices.
Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018
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Fig. 3. Adblock tree.
• uBlock Origin [25] is being developed by the creator
who was previously involved in the creation of uBlock.
uBlock Origin is currently being used by 10 million
users. The authors of the project do not accept any
donations for its development. uBlock blocks
advertisements as well as tracking scripts and malicious
websites [17]. Its features include engaging less
processing power compared to Adblock Plus [26].
• uBlock [27] is currently being developed by a group of
programmers and its income is derived from user
donations. uBlock is available for Chrome, Safari and
Firefox users. Its features include not only blocking
advertisements, but also malicious scripts.
Thus, it was assumed that the term adblock should be
construed as a group of programs for blocking online
advertisements (Fig. 3).
Additionally, Table 1 presents types and methods of used
blockades which are the subject of considerations included in
the present paper [8], [23]-[25].
The common feature of all the presented programs is using
lists of filtered resources and URLs. The lists containing
information about types and names of advertisements, the point
of origin of these advertisements and many other filtered
elements are created and updated by a community centered
around the topic of blocking advertisements. The lists can be
used by several adblocks, such as e.g. the EasyList [7], which
provides sets of filtered advertisements for aforementioned
programs.
Adblocks enable creating own sets of blocked resources
and URLs, as well as making them available to other users.
They are made available by creating files and publishing them
on the internet. An example of such an individual set is
AlleBlock, a set of filters for the greatest auction and trading
platform in Poland [4] or the list published under the
Certyficate.IT project, which includes the most popular portals
in Poland, which filters advertisements displayed on them [6].
IV. DATASET AND RESULTS
The authors have conducted studies in Poland which
concerned the reasons for using adblock programs. The
introduction to the study was based on interviews. Their
objective was to assess selected aspects concerning the use of
advertisement blocking programs. The increasing interest in
the area of advertisement blocking and limitation of users'
personal data exposure makes it an excellent research subject.
TABLE I. K
EY
D
ATA
A
BOUT
M
OST
P
OPULAR
A
DBLOCKS
AdBlock AdblockPlus uBlock uBlock
Origin
Founder Develop ers Eyeo GmbH Develop ers Raymond
Hill
Supported
browsers
FireFox
Opera
Chrome
Safari
Edge
FireFox
Opera
Chrome
Safari
Edge
And ot hers
FireFox
Chrome
Safari
FireFox
Chrome
Safari
Edge
Financing Donation Advertisers Donation Without
payments
Block Type
Ads
Malware
Privacy
(+)
a
(-)
a
(-)
a
(+)
a
(-)
a
(-)
a
(+)
a
(+)
a
(+)
a
(+)
a
(+)
a
(+)
a
Users 40m 100m 640k 10m
(+) active by default; (-) no active by default
During the first stage of the study the authors have
developed empirical assumptions for the survey and conducted
an analysis of the current state of adblock programs and
possibilities for their configuration and effective use. During
the second stage of the study the authors have focused on
examining the reasons for using and ways in which adblock
programs are used in Poland.
In order to become acquainted with the activity of Polish
users of programs for blocking advertisements in web
browsers, a questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire
served as a basis for conducting a survey in which 774
respondents participated. An invitation to fill in the survey was
posted on several profiles and groups in social media and it
was sent by e-mail as well. Having clicked the hyperlink in the
invitation, participants were transferred to a website with the
questionnaire.
The survey started with the following question: Are you
using an adblock? For users who responded negatively to the
qualifying question this was the end of their involvement in the
study. Remaining users were asked to indicate the way in
which they use the adblock and the reasons for using the
adblock as well as their level of acceptance of advertisements
being displayed on the internet. The users have also provided
their age, sex and level of education. The subsequent part of
the study involved considering responses given by 596
respondents.
As many as 56.1% of respondents in the group were men
and the majority of respondents were people aged 18–24.
Respondents aged 25–34 placed second, i.e. they comprised
32.8% of respondents. There were 9% of respondents aged 35–
44. As many as 55.3% of respondents had higher education,
while 44.5% indicated high school education.
The study group included 77% users who indicated that
they are using an adblock program. Everyone in that group has
such a program on their personal computer and, moreover, one
fourth of adblock users have installed it on their mobile device,
such as a smartphone or a tablet as well. A substantial majority
of adblock users keep its default settings after its installation,
whereas 32.9% of users configure the program on their own by
adding filtering lists and turning on additional functions. As
many as 87.1% of adblock users actively turn it on and off. The
adblock
AdBlock AdblockPlu
suBlock uBlock
Origin
Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2018
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reason for users turning off the adblock program is mostly a
need for temporary access to content which is unavailable in
the browser due to the adblock's operation. Having gained
access to the relevant content, the users turn the adblock on
again. The second reason for turning adblock off is turning it
off permanently for a particular website or adding the website
to a list of exceptions. As many as 86.7% said that they have
come across an adblock wall while using a web browser. After
seeing the adblock wall 44.5% of them leave the website, while
55.5% decide to turn their adblock off or add the website to
exceptions and they use the content provided by the website.
Users in the analysed group came to know about the
existence and the objective of adblock programs in numerous
ways. As many as 31.5% of them heard about them from a
friend or a relative. 22.7% read about the possibilities offered
by adblock programs on the internet, e.g. while reading a news
item. 8.7% found an adblock while browsing popular browser
extensions. One third of respondents did not remember how
they learned about the adblock. Study participants have most
commonly (50.3%) indicated that advertisements are a
disturbance during reception of online content as the reason for
using an adblock. The other important reason for using an
adblock (37.8%) was too many advertisements being displayed
on a single website. Other indicated reasons for using an
adblock included websites loading slowly, protection against
viruses and malware, privacy protection regarding tracking of
users' online activity. This question consisted in asking
respondents to indicate one; main reason for using an adblock,
but some of them used the comments section for the question
to provide further explanation, i.e. that other listed reasons also
contributed to them using an adblock.
V. DISCUSSION
An adblock program constitutes a response to the
constantly growing trend of lack of acceptance and rejection of
advertisements. Currently, instead of consciously or
subconsciously ignoring advertisements, users are able to
install software which will prevent advertisements from being
displayed. In many cases advertisements will not be
downloaded at all, which saves data transfer capacity and
reduces the engagement of processing power, as well as
positively affects users' sense of security and limits
disturbances within contents published on websites.
In conclusion, there is no legal basis for stopping the
operation of advertisement blocking programs. Publisher's
reaction to that is creating new advertisement formats, the main
feature of which is a lack of possibility to skip them.
Considering the nature of the internet, there are no legal
measures for forcing users to view advertisements in which
they are not interested. It is likely that there will be a product
created to neutralize the operation of each newly developed
technology. Publishers and internet users will always be on two
opposing sides of advertising until advertisements are accepted
by users and content publishers start using advertising which is
acceptable for the users.
One of the main conclusions after conducting the study was
the discovery of a significant difference between the
percentage of population using an adblock program according
to PageFair's study and own study. According to PageFair,
33% of internet users in Poland in 2017 are using the program.
The study conducted in April 2017 indicated that the
percentage of people using an adblock is more than twice as
high and it amounts to 77%.
Such a significant difference may have been caused by
inaccuracy of data collected by PageFair, which at a certain
level is estimated on the basis of publicly available data. The
result obtained during our study confirms the result obtained
during the interview, when most of the users declared that they
are using an adblock. On the other hand, such a high
percentage of people using an adblock is visible in actions
undertaken by advertisement publishers who are increasingly
frequently employing scripts detecting adblock functionalities
and limiting access to content.
Another important conclusion is the displayed awareness of
users regarding advertisement publishers wanting to hide
content from them. This is the reason for users actively turning
adblock programs on and off or adding websites to the list of
exceptions. This confirms a high level of awareness of users in
the scope of independent configuration of adblock programs
and using them purposefully.
VI. CONCLUSION
The paper shows the reasons for using adblock programs
and presents the current most popular programs of that type as
well as their characteristics. Apart from aforementioned, a
survey study was conducted involving a group of Polish
internet users, which shows that they actively and consciously
block the display of advertisements in their web browsers.
In this study we show how to adblock software
technologies are applied in Polish environment. We discover a
strong desire to block advertisements and well known ways to
do this. Also in Poland there are many adapted solutions to
improve adblock accuracy and coverage.
Future directions of research will concern the problem of
intrusiveness of advertisements and ways for decreasing it. As
it was mentioned in the paper, users are not against
advertisements being displayed—they oppose the way in
which they appear on their screen, e.g. by suddenly covering
the viewed content. Further research will be also aimed at a
quantitative analysis regarding elements blocked on websites,
such as unwanted advertisements, scripts tracking user's
activity and malicious activities (malware).
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