Ad Blocker Comparison

Ad Blockers Without Acceptable Ads: Which Ones Actually Block Everything?

Most popular ad blockers participate in Acceptable Ads, a program where advertisers pay to bypass blocking. Only a small number block ads completely, with no paid whitelisting of any kind.

What Is the Acceptable Ads Program?

The Acceptable Ads program was created by Eyeo GmbH, the company that makes Adblock Plus. It defines a set of criteria for "non-intrusive" ads, typically text ads with no animation, no pop-ups, and limited targeting. Advertisers who meet these criteria and pay Eyeo are added to a whitelist, which participating ad blockers use to allow those ads through even when blocking is enabled.

Large advertisers (companies above a revenue threshold) pay Eyeo directly. Smaller advertisers may qualify for free whitelisting. Eyeo has stated that large advertisers account for the majority of its revenue.

Ad blockers that use the Eyeo whitelist include it as an enabled-by-default filter. Users can disable it, but many do not, either because they don't know it exists, or because the setting is buried in preferences.

Ad Blockers: Acceptable Ads Status

Ad blocker Acceptable Ads Can be disabled Chrome (MV3) Firefox Open source
ProBlocker None N/A Yes Yes Yes
uBlock Origin None N/A Removed Yes Yes
uBlock Origin Lite None N/A Yes (limited) Yes Yes
Adblock Plus Yes (default) Yes Yes Yes No
AdBlock Yes (default) Yes Yes Yes No
AdGuard Yes (default) Yes Yes Yes Partial
Ghostery Varies Yes Yes Yes Partial
Total Adblock Yes No Yes Yes No

As of June 2026. Report an error

ProBlocker: No Acceptable Ads, Ever

ProBlocker does not participate in the Acceptable Ads program and never has. It does not receive payment from any advertiser to allow ads through. There are no "allowed" advertisers, no premium whitelists, and no paid exceptions to blocking. Every ad that matches ProBlocker's filter rules is blocked.

ProBlocker is free and open source. The source code is available on GitHub so anyone can verify that no Acceptable Ads or similar whitelist filters are included.

Read ProBlocker's full transparency report →

Frequently Asked Questions

Acceptable Ads is a whitelist program operated by Eyeo GmbH (the company behind Adblock Plus). Advertisers pay Eyeo to have their ads shown even when a user has an ad blocker installed. Extensions participating in the program allow these "acceptable" ads through by default. Critics argue this is a conflict of interest: the same company that makes an ad blocker also accepts money from advertisers to bypass it.

Try ProBlocker

ProBlocker is free, open source, and blocks all ads and trackers with no exceptions. Get it from the Chrome Web Store in seconds.

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