Block Facebook Ads. Is It Even Possible?

It’s not clear anymore what Facebook is nowadays used for. Originated from the idea of connecting classmates, friends, and relatives, the platform took a confident course for becoming the world advertisement leader. The ads are so well integrated into our newsfeeds and involve such great multimedia, that consuming them became an everyday business for millions of people. More ads mean less usability, however, the vast majority of users are still in love with Facebook for the communication and entertainment possibilities it provides. 

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While ad blockers help us to enjoy the actual content of the web pages without being exposed to the ads, with Facebook the situation is not so optimistic. 98% of all the money for Mark Zuckerberg and his employees comes from advertising, therefore, Facebook does everything possible to feed you as many adverts as it can. 

Credit: reddit.com 

The consequences of this aggressive monetization strategy stretch from the annoyment of a regular user to possible election interference, with analytical experts obtaining the data and using them for spreading questionable information. 

Is there a reliable way to block ads on Facebook? Can we stop them from learning our behavior online and affecting our consumer decisions? The way to answer that lies in how well we know Facebook and the ads they use. 

Types of Facebook Ads

During over 15 years of its existence, Facebook developed an enormously sophisticated built-in advertisement platform, which helps businesses adjust their targeted ads to all very fine details. Depending on the audience, interests, device, and many other factors, advertisers can choose how their piece will be shown and to whom. They can also decide what media will be used in individual advertising campaigns. Generally speaking, there are four main types of ad content you might see on Facebook:

• Images: a simple picture with a lead serving as a link to the targeted website;
• Videos: autoplayed for users by default, they use sound and motion to catch an eye;
• Collections: multiple pictures within a single frame, ideal for product catalog ads;
• Carousels: support up to 10 pictures and videos, with individual links to each of them.

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Besides that, Facebook allows you to boost any page posts, videos, or events so they reach more users for the desired effect. Even though the biggest variety of ad placement options are reserved for desktops, Facebook also provides some platform-specific ad placeholders for mobile apps, Messenger, and Instagram. To the extent that an average user has at least one ad in their view wherever they go on the social media platform. And this can indeed be very irritating.

How to Block Personal Ads on Facebook

Facebook loves tracking your likes, views, and social interactions on the platform. They use this information to target the ads. As a result, adverts you see become oddly too personal, revealing much of your private things to anyone who came across your profile. Luckily, there is a way to restrict Facebook from using this information:

• Click the triangle icon in the top-right corner of your profile;
• Go to the Settings and Privacy section and select Settings;
• Scroll down to find Ads in the left-hand pane;
• Ad settings section is where you want to disallow data collection, including:
  • Data about your activity from partners;
  • Categories used to reach you;
  • Ads shown off Facebook;
  • Social Interactions (select Only Me).

Note, that this is not going to stop ads on Facebook or to make you see fewer ads. Unticking all the mentioned boxes and removing categories will only help you to better maintain your online privacy and make Facebook ads less personal, thus, less annoying. 

How to Block Facebook Mid-Roll Video Ads? 

Everyone who is into video streaming on social media has probably researched how to block Facebook mid-roll video ads at least once. But they barely found any good answers. Mid-roll commercials interrupt video playback and are not skippable which brings them to the category of the most hated ads online. Facebook crafted the code for this type of ad with such scrutiny that none of the existing ad blockers can sort the buyers from the spyers and keep the video intact.

Credit: www.adweek.com

Funny enough, we found a non-trivial way to avoid watching the mid-roll ads in Facebook videos. Once the ad starts, tap any name from the comments section below the video to open the person’s profile. Then go back to the video which will continue from where you left off, but without an ad. Yes, this is far from an ideal solution, so head further for more.

Use Browsers to Block Facebook Ads on Android 

It is easy for Facebook to bring in the ads inside their branded applications. However, the task becomes harder when it has to deal with web browsers. This might be your best bet for enjoying all the content Facebook has to offer, including the videos, without ads. 

Simply take out the link to the desired video or post from the app by clicking the three dots icon and paste it into your web browser for watching. Of course, your browser has to be equipped with the ad blocking feature to make this work. We would like to feature two popular web browsers that got their fame as meticulous and principled fighters against all ads out there:

Kiwi Browser 

This browser features a great ad blocking option that will save much of your time and nerves watching the mid-roll video ads. When in the browser, open the menu and choose the option to “hide annoying ads”. Now login to Facebook and play the video like in old good times! 

Lately, we’ve seen reports from the users claiming that Kiwi Browser support was stopped. Perhaps, this can affect the way it blocks the ads on Facebook, too.

Credit: www.reddit.com

Brave Browser

Brave Browser is famous for its revolutionary approach to online ads. They claim to block the “bad, heavy ads” and replace them with “clean ads” that are safe and don’t slow down page loading. While this works pretty well on most websites, it is different in the case of Facebook. Unfortunately, the ads here are shown on the usual level. 

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And this is due to the very nature of Facebook advertising technology. The best way to describe it was found in Brave Community chat:

Credit: community.brave.com

By using the tips that we provided in this article you will minimize the ad stress and boost your social media performance. In addition, AdLock is currently developing a tool able to rebuff Facebook ads. It will be available for you soon – stay tuned!