Screen & Digital Behaviour
How many ads are blocked every day worldwide?
Ad blocking is software that prevents ads from loading on web pages and in apps. It took off around 2009 with browser extensions. By Q4 2025, over 1.1 billion people use some form of ad blocking, per eyeo's 2026 industry report. At roughly 80 ads blocked per user per day, that's about 1,018,519 ads blocked every second globally. The user count keeps rising, but the internet grew faster still: ad blockers now cover about 30% of the online population, down from 42% a few years ago. Even so, it remains the largest consumer rejection of a business model in digital history.
Roughly 1M ads every second.
Source: eyeo Ad-Blocking Report 2026; PageFair/Blockthrough. AnythingCounter overview →
What this means for you
If you browse the internet without an ad blocker, you are exposed to an estimated 4,000-10,000 advertising messages per day. Most arrive embedded in pages you visit, videos you watch, and apps you use. Fewer than 100 of those exposures are consciously noticed.
Installing an ad blocker removes almost all of that. Over 1.1 billion people globally have one installed, which is why the counter above moves as fast as it does. The global opt-out is not a niche behaviour any more, though the internet has grown even faster: ad blocking now covers roughly 30% of internet users worldwide, down from 42% a few years ago, and still over 30% of users in many European countries such as Germany, Austria, and Sweden.
Beyond comfort, there are practical reasons: ad networks are among the most common vectors for malware delivery ("malvertising"). Independent security researchers estimate that ad blockers also reduce page load times by 15-50%, and reduce tracking-based data collection significantly.
Ad blocking: why over a billion users opted out of the attention economy
The consumer rejection of advertising
Ad blocking represents perhaps the most dramatic voluntary mass rejection of a business model in internet history. From near-zero in 2008, adoption grew to 615 million devices by 2017, 912 million by 2024, and over 1.1 billion by Q4 2025. The primary driver is user experience: online advertising had become so intrusive, slow-loading, tracking-heavy, and privacy-invasive that a large minority of users chose to block it entirely rather than tolerate it. Growth has shifted geography: mobile ad blocking in lower- and middle-income countries is now the main engine, up 23% since 2023, while desktop use in higher-income countries has actually declined 4% over the same period.
Impact on the web economy
Ad blocking creates a fundamental tension in the "free web": the model where content is funded by advertising is eroded when 30% of users globally, and 40%+ in some markets, bypass those ads. PageFair/Blockthrough estimates the industry cost at $12-15 billion annually. Publishers have responded with ad-block walls (demanding users disable ad blockers to access content), more intrusive pop-ups, native advertising, and subscription models. The ad industry responded by creating "acceptable ads" standards (less intrusive ads whitelisted by Adblock Plus), itself a controversial compromise. That compromise has real scale now: more people participate in Acceptable Ads, choosing a lighter, curated ad experience over blocking everything, than live in the entire United States.
When the ad-blocking movement reached a tipping point
- 2009Adblock Plus browser extension launches; first major mass-market ad blocking tool
- 2013PageFair publishes first systematic ad blocking reports; usage growing rapidly
- 2015Apple enables ad blocking in Safari on iOS 9, mobile ad blocking goes mainstream
- 2017615 million devices use ad blockers; 11% of global internet users
- 202237% of 16-64 year-olds globally use ad blockers; mobile blocking accelerating
- 2024912 million devices; 42% of internet users block ads; mobile now exceeds desktop in count
- 20251.1 billion ad-blocking users worldwide (Q4 2025), up 13% from 2023; but only ~30% of the internet population, down from 42%
The numbers: a billion users have opted out of the ad economy
About one in every seven people on Earth now blocks ads on some device, roughly 1.1 billion users as of Q4 2025
eyeo GmbH42% of global internet users use some form of ad blocking as of 2024, approximately 912 million devices
Blockthrough / eyeo37% of internet users aged 16-64 regularly or occasionally use ad blockers (2022)
Blockthrough / eyeoIn 2017, 615 million devices used ad blockers; by 2024 this had grown to 912 million (+48%)
Blockthrough / eyeoMobile ad blocking grew 30% year-over-year since 2022, now exceeding desktop in number of devices
Blockthrough / eyeoAd blocking cost publishers an estimated $12-15 billion in revenue in 2022
Blockthrough / eyeoAd blocking growth: from a niche plugin to a billion-device movement
Ad blocking's growth curve looks almost like a straight line up: from a browser plugin nobody outside tech circles had heard of in 2009 to comfortably past a billion users worldwide. What the line doesn't show is that ad blocking's share of the online population has been shrinking since its peak a few years ago, because the internet itself grew even faster. Two trends are hiding inside one chart: more users, but a smaller slice of the whole.
| Year | Rate | Ads blocked/day | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 565K/sec | 48.8B | Desktop-dominant; mobile beginning |
| 2020 | 757K/sec | 65.4B | Mobile blocking surges |
| 2024 | 844K/sec | 72.9B | 30% mobile growth YoY |
| 2025 | 1.0M/sec | 88.0B | Mobile-led growth in lower-income countries; desktop declining |
| 2027 (forecast) | 1.0M/sec | 88.0B | Mobile DNS-based blocking growth; more built-in browser blockers |
Ads blocked vs. ads seen, today
The digital advertising ecosystem is split: for every ad that lands, billions more are intercepted. This contest between ad delivery and ad blocking defines modern digital media economics.
What the research shows
| Year | Finding | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 615 million devices using ad blockers globally; 236 million desktop users; 380 million mobile; 11% of global internet users | 615.0M devices with ad blocking | Blockthrough / eyeo |
| 2019 | 763.5 million global ad-blocking users across all platforms | 763.5M devices with ad blocking | Blockthrough / eyeo |
| 2020 | 820 million total ad-blocking devices; 290M desktop, 530M mobile | 820.0M devices with ad blocking | Blockthrough / eyeo |
| 2022 | 37% of internet users 16-64 use ad blockers; 290M monthly active desktop ad blocker users | 37 % internet users using ad blockers | Blockthrough / eyeo |
| 2024 | 42% of internet users worldwide use some form of ad blocking; 912M devices | 912.0M devices with ad blocking | Statista |
| 2025 | 1.1 billion global ad-blocking users in Q4 2025 (448M desktop, 629M mobile), up 13% from 2023; now about 30% of the internet population, down from 42% | 1.1B ad-blocking users | eyeo GmbH |
In perspective
With about 1,018,519 ads blocked per second, ad blockers prevent the equivalent of every single person in Los Angeles seeing an ad, every 11.6 seconds
1.1 billion ad-blocking users is more than the entire population of the US, EU, and Japan combined
How the number is calculated
The ~1,018,519 ads/sec figure is derived from eyeo's Ad-Blocking Report 2026: 1.1 billion ad-blocking users worldwide in Q4 2025 (448 million desktop, 629 million mobile) × ~80 ads blocked/day per device ÷ 86,400 seconds. The 80 ads/day per device estimate comes from PageFair's older analysis of ad load across typical browsing sessions; eyeo's 2026 report does not update this per-device figure, so it is carried over. Mobile ad blocking has grown fastest, now accounting for more than half of blocked devices, concentrated in lower- and middle-income countries.
Sources: Blockthrough / PageFair - 2022 Adblock Report - Statista - Ad Blocking Topic - eyeo - Ad-Blocking Report 2026. Methodology →
Frequently asked questions
- How many people use ad blockers?
- As of Q4 2025, approximately 1.1 billion people globally use ad blocking software (448 million on desktop, 629 million on mobile), representing about 30% of the internet population, down from 42% a few years ago as internet growth outpaced ad-blocking adoption (eyeo Ad-Blocking Report 2026).
- How much ad revenue does ad blocking cost the industry?
- PageFair/Blockthrough estimates that ad blocking cost publishers approximately $12-15 billion annually in 2022. Some estimates go higher when factoring in mobile app ads. This figure has grown significantly since the $6.6 billion estimate in 2014.
- Where is ad blocking most common?
- Nearly four in ten people online in Indonesia (41%) and Vietnam (39%) block ads, about double the rate in Japan (15%) and South Korea (17%), per eyeo's 2025 country data. The gap tracks mobile data costs and connection speed more than income: in cheaper, slower-mobile markets, an ad blocker also means a faster, lighter page.
Why trust this data
The data comes from eyeo (makers of Adblock Plus), PageFair/Blockthrough, and GlobalWebIndex (GWI) annual reports. eyeo directly measures active installations across its product suite and, since 2023, blends this with GWI survey panels; PageFair's older reports conducted independent consumer surveys. These are the industry-standard sources for ad blocking measurement cited by the IAB and major advertising trade bodies.
Sources
Blockthrough / PageFair - 2022 Adblock Report - Statista - Ad Blocking Topic - eyeo - Ad-Blocking Report 2026.
Explore related: Ads seen per day - Attention span data - Social media time, and the AnythingCounter data dashboard.