AdBlock Plus returns to Android so you can surf ad-free

One of the most popular ad-blocking apps is finally back on Android after a two-year hiatus.

AdBlock Plus, the company behind the popular ad-blocking browser extension, released AdBlock Browser Wednesday — a mobile browser for Android that has the company's ad-removing service baked in. The new app comes more than two years after Google removed AdBlock's first Android app from Google Play.
 

AdBlock Browser isn't available through Google Play yet, but any Android users can get their hands on the beta version by joining this Google+ group and following the download instructions. The company says it hopes to eventually have an iOS version of the app as well.

The browser's default settings block all ads that don't meet specific guidelines for "acceptable ads." The company has a whitelisting process that automatically unblocks ads on certain sites that meet its criteria for being non-intrusive (users can also choose to opt out of all advertisements in the app's settings.)

Instead of building their own browser, AdBlock used a version of Mozilla Firefox so the app's interface looks a lot like other mobile browsers. Writing on the company's blog Wednesday, AdBlock's Felix Dahlke noted that Mozilla's open approach was particularly appealing to the company.

 

"Building our own browser gives us a lot more freedom to integrate adblocking as a first class feature that’s easy to understand and configure," Dahlke writes. "For now, our goal is to build a solid mobile browser with great adblocking integrated."

The company has other "big plans for the future" though Dahlke says the current one is to keep the experience within Firefox's interface. Whether the app will make it into the Play Store, however, remains to be seen.

The current browser is in Google Play limbo as it waits for approval, which may take awhile given the company's history with Google. The last time AdBlock Plus had an app in Google Play in 2013, it was removed for “interference with another service or product in an unauthorized manner."

But the good news — for now at least — is that the company has figured out a workaround without Google Play.