It looks like the official stable release for Firefox’s much-anticipated built-in ad blocker is finally around the corner. The support page for the feature is now live on the website, and it actually loads.
For those who’ve been following our coverage, you’ll know that we spotted the feature in action on a recent Firefox beta release for iOS. In our report, we noted that Mozilla’s help post for the iOS ad blocker was indexed by Google, but the page itself wasn’t loading when we visited the URL.
Well, that same page is the one that’s now viewable by the public. In fact, it had been updated only a few hours earlier, before we began putting this story together.
The article outlines what to expect from the new ad blocker and what it won’t do. For starters, it will stop a large chunk of advertisements, including third-party ad networks, ad trackers, as well as disruptive elements such as pop-ups and overlays.
That said, Mozilla clarifies that you might still see some ads slip through the cracks.
Because websites use different advertising technologies, some ads may still appear.
Adding to that, the ad blocker won’t stop ads from popping up when you’re using a search engine like Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and so on. Similarly, Firefox won’t block ads on its own homepage.
But the biggest question remains unanswered on the support page: will it block YouTube ads? Firefox hasn’t mentioned anything about not blocking YouTube ads. But in our own testing, we did notice that ads played when we watched YouTube videos with the ad blocker enabled on the beta build. So it’s most likely that this will remain the case even after the official release.
Mozilla probably doesn’t want to ruin its special partnership with Google, the company that’s responsible for most of its revenue. So if you wanted a browser that gets rid of ads, you might have to look at browsers like Brave for now.
The ad blocker has been in the works for a while now. The company confirmed in June that they were developing a built-in ad blocker for Firefox. Moreover, with Google’s recent moves to bury MV2 extensions for good, it made sense for Mozilla to put its own ad blocker in the spotlight.
That said, we still don’t know exactly when the built-in ad blocker will arrive on the stable app. The latest Firefox 153.3 that shipped a couple of days ago on iOS doesn’t include the feature.
We’ll keep an eye out for more details on the official release. So stay tuned for our coverage when it drops.
Dwayne Cubbins
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I cover fast-moving stories across apps, online platforms, and everyday tech — phones, wearables, consoles, and whatever else people are fighting with this week. Bugs, rollouts, scams, policy enforcement, and the occasional internet-culture rabbit hole are all fair game. My goal is simple — make confusing tech news readable. When I'm not working, I'm working out or chilling with my dog. Got a tip? You can find me on X @dcubbins.