Company rebuts report that said Edge would get an integrated ad blocker Microsoft does not plan on baking an online ad blocker into its Edge browser, a company engineer said today, rebutting a piece published Wednesday that got wide follow-on coverage. “We are not building a native ad blocker within [Microsoft Edge], but we will support third-party ad blockers like AdBlock and AdBlock Plus,” tweeted Jacob Rossi, an engineer on the browser team, earlier today. Rossi and another Microsoft developer, Kyle Pflug, who also tweeted comments about the purported in-Edge-ad-blocker, were responding to a post on ZDNet that cited a slide in a session held Wednesday at Build, Microsoft’s annual developer conference. “‘Build ad blocking features into the browser,’ is also being targeted for the next edition,” wrote Ed Bott about a slide used in the session “Microsoft Edge: What’s Next for Microsoft’s New Browser and Web Platform.” Rossi and Pflug said that the slide was misinterpreted. It actually referred to feedback requests from Windows Insiders — the beta testers who run the most problematic builds of the new OS and its integrated browser — that was being addressed by supporting third-party extensions, they said. Earlier this month, Microsoft finally released a version of Edge that supports add-ons, making good on a pledge from May 2015. Microsoft has made available just three extensions, but has promised more will come, including some from outside vendors and developers. Among the latter: AdBlock and Adblock Plus, two of the most popular browser add-ons that block most forms of online advertisements that websites display to users. That’s still the plan. Some browsers have gone so far as to bake in ad-blocking technologies, but most do not, instead relying on outsiders to craft extensions and take any heat from publishers whose revenue relies on advertising (as does Computerworld). Of the top five browsers, Opera Software is the exception: Three weeks ago, Opera announced that it had built ad-blocking into a developer preview of its flagship browser. In an interview with Computerworld, Krystian Kolondra, Opera’s head of engineering, explained that the ad-blocking move was primarily based on a belief that by stripping out ads, sites would render significantly faster. “It’s quite obvious that users care about speed,” Kolondra said as he defended the integrated ad blocker. “We should start talking about this. The [ad] industry should be making sure that ads are not ruining the user experience.” Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe