Midori browser will soon have a built-in ad blocker with v11.9.2 on desktop

In the current version, the Midori browser has an ad-blocker that is a separate extension that you have to install. Astian, the company behind the browser, is changing that soon. It’ll be a direct, built-in ad blocker that doesn’t require the installation of any extensions.

Astian published a blog explaining how the ad blocker works, and also reveals the exact version it’ll ship with — v11.9.2. On Linux and Windows, the latest version you can install at the time of writing is 11.9.1.

Midori blatantly admitted that the current extension-based solution was rather sub-standard, and that it was slowing down performance. Since it’s an additional resource on top of the browser, it consumed more resources. The solution they’ve come up with is to switch to a built-in ad blocker instead.

The blog post also mentions that it’ll be enabled by default after the v11.9.2 update finally comes out. However, no ETA was announced.

Moreover, the announcement contains a reference image which shows the ad blocker in action. At the top left, a pop-up displays the number of ads and trackers that were blocked. You can also view what was blocked. There’s a separate “Allowlist”, and further settings are available as well.

It’s worth noting that the Android version of the same browser is on v11.9.2.3, and the version number/update schedule differs from the desktop version. I’ve checked the Android version of Midori and wasn’t able to find any built-in ad blocker there, so it’ll probably come to the desktop version first.

The Astian company also put out a post on X, explaining how the ad blocker actually works. It reviews requests after a page starts loading, and unwanted content is identified after that. If the content is determined as unwanted, it’ll block such content before it can load. This results in a cleaner page. Furthermore, you can whitelist pages and allow trusted websites if you want to.

You can view the entire blog post from Astian here.

It looks like more browser companies are starting to hop on the built-in ad blocker trend. Brave already has the exceptional, industry-leading Shields, and Mozilla recently introduced a native ad blocker for the iOS app.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets—more info is available here.