Editing Ad blocking (section)

==Prevalence==
Use of mobile and desktop ad blocking software designed to remove traditional advertising grew by 41% worldwide and by 48% in the U.S. between Q2 2014 and Q2 2015.<ref name="auto">{{cite web|last=Elmer-DeWitt|first=Philip|date=21 September 2015|title=Look Who's Driving Adblock Growth|url=http://fortune.com/2015/09/21/apple-adblock-stats/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927191336/http://fortune.com/2015/09/21/apple-adblock-stats/|archive-date=27 September 2015|access-date=23 March 2019|website=Fortune}}</ref> As of Q2 {{As of|2015|bare=yes}}, 45 million Americans were using ad blockers.<ref name="auto" /> In a survey research study released Q2 2016, Met Facts reported 72 million Americans, 12.8 million adults in the UK, and 13.2 million adults in France were using ad blockers on their PCs, smartphones, or tablet computers. In March 2016, the [[Internet Advertising Bureau]] reported that UK ad blocking was already at 22% among people over 18 years old.<ref>{{cite news|last=Sweney|first=Mark|date=1 March 2016|title=More than 9 million Britons now use adblockers|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/01/more-than-nine-million-brits-now-use-adblockers|url-status=live|access-date=23 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828190306/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/01/more-than-nine-million-brits-now-use-adblockers|archive-date=28 August 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Sweney|first=Mark|date=20 April 2016|title=Fears of adblocking 'epidemic' as report forecasts almost 15m UK users next year|newspaper=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/20/adblocking-uk-web-users|url-status=live|access-date=23 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160425012441/http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/20/adblocking-uk-web-users|archive-date=25 April 2016|issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

{{As of|2021}}, 27% of US Internet users used ad blocking software, a trend that has been increasing since 2014.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ad blocker usage in U.S.|url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach-usage-us/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204233657/https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach-usage-us/|archive-date=4 December 2020|access-date=2020-11-23|website=Statista|language=en}}</ref>

Among technical audiences the rate of blocking reached 58% as of {{As of|2021|bare=yes}}.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Saric|first=Marko|date=2021-08-31|title=58% of Hacker News, Reddit and tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics|url=https://plausible.io/blog/google-analytics-adblockers-missing-data|access-date=2021-08-31|website=Plausible Analytics|language=en}}</ref>