In a tweet, Jacob Rossi, a Microsoft Edge developer, clarified that the rumors about built-in ad-blocking capabilities for the Edge browser were not true. At the same time today, Opera launched the latest Opera beta, which includes the promised native ad-blocking feature.
No Native Ad-Blocking For Edge
In one of its Edge-related sessions at Build, Microsoft showed a table of features containing the top feature requests and feedback from users. The fourth one was called “Build ad blocking features into the browser.” This led some to believe that Microsoft was including native ad-blocking features into the Edge browser.
However, according to Kyle Pflug, another Edge developer, this was a misinterpretation. Microsoft was simply showing user requests at the time, but the company did say that extensions will start working in a future Edge update, later this year. These extensions would include ad-blocking extensions as well, and Adblock Plus has already announced the development of its own extension for Edge.
Opera Beta With Native Ad-Blocking
Earlier this month, Opera announced being the first (and now apparently only) browser to feature native ad-blocking that promises to be faster than ad-blocking extensions such as Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin.
Starting today, users can download the latest Opera beta version, which includes this feature. The ad blocking doesn’t happen by default, so if you want to enable it, you’ll have to go into the Menu in the left corner, then Settings > Basic > Block ads. There’s also a Manage Exceptions feature where you can whitelist certain websites.
On the right side of the address bar, you can disable (or re-enable) the ad-blocking for individual websites, as well. When you click the option, you’ll also see a history of ad blocking for that particular website, and you can also compare how the website loads with and without the ad blocking enabled.
The new Opera beta also includes support for Certificate Transparency, more customization options for the StartPage, some UI refinements for the internal pages, a built-in feedback system, native context menus for Windows 8+, and some stability improvements for the synchronization feature.
[Editor’s Note: We are a publication that does, in fact, make its money from advertising dollars. Therefore, there may be some irony and potential conflict of interest when we cover a topic such as ad blocking.]
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu.
