Ad Trackers Accounted for 10.22 Percent of Global Internet Traffic in 2025, Up from 7.84 Percent in 2024

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In 2025, ad trackers made up 10.22 percent of global internet traffic, an increase from 7.84 percent in 2024, according to AdGuard's annual Ad Trackers Report. These figures represent raw requests, which are the initial background connections activated when a page loads.

These are separate from the content visible to users. AdGuard estimates that blocking a single primary ad-related request can prevent an average of 4.17 additional background requests. This highlights how quickly tracker-related traffic can grow behind a single page load.
Ad-trackers-around-the-world-1536x879-1-scaled.jpg
 
Thanks for the information. Over 10% of global traffic is now made up of trackers… a round of applause for the tracking industry, which turns invasion into a business, leaving us users with a procession of digital ghosts that devour our bandwidth as if it were thin air.

The most alarming part is the multiplier effect mentioned in the report: every primary request opens the door to 4 others in the background. It is an invisible plague. Nowadays, setting up walls with content blockers isn't a luxury, it's self-defense. Browsing without them is literally inviting an army of ghosts to plunder your privacy and resources. 🕸️👻🛡️
 
God bless Raymond Hill.
I think more important role have filter list developers. They are the ones writing rules for websites specifying what should be blocked and how. Gorhill just created an extension that reads filter lists and applies rules—nothing else. He himself doesn't accept donations for that reason.
 
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I think more important role have filter list developers. They are the ones writing rules for websites specifying what should be blocked and how. Gorhill just created an extension that reads filter lists and applies rules—nothing else. He himself doesn't accept donations for that reason.
Agree, but the same filter list (easy list) performs far less in other adblockers than uBO; the secret sauce of the extension makes a lot of difference.
 
EasyList should work in all major ad blockers the same because it doesn't use any specific syntaxes like AdGuard does.
All the aftermentioned adblocker extensions use easylist filter lists.
You may try them one by one on media piracy websites (high challenge sites) and compare the output with uBOL.




 
All the aftermentioned adblocker extensions use easylist filter lists.
You may try them one by one on media piracy websites (high challenge sites) and compare the output with uBOL.




You're talking about uBOL, I talk about uBO. uBOL is and will always be less capable than uBO. All of these ad blockers can't block everything on piracy sites. Regular versions of these ad blockers (MV2) can block everything.
 
You're talking about uBOL, I talk about uBO. uBOL is and will always be less capable than uBO. All of these ad blockers can't block everything on piracy sites. Regular versions of these ad blockers (MV2) can block everything.
Even uBOL can block better than those mentioned above; what I was referring to is the impelementation of the filter list is as influential as the list itself.
The two I consider most effecient are uBO/uBOL and AdGuard (but AG has resource-utilization issues lately).
 
Even uBOL can block better than those mentioned above; what I was referring to is the impelementation of the filter list is as influential as the list itself.
The two I consider most effecient are uBO/uBOL and AdGuard (but AG has resource-utilization issues lately).
It's not fair to compare filter lists coming from the source and filter lists built-into the extension. When you use MV2 ad blocker, it fetches resources from filter developer's host, always having up-to-date list. With MV3, filter lists are built-in extension which means filter list gets updated when extension gets updated. In that case, difference between blocking capability might not come from syntax rather than extensions using different versions of EasyList, some might even modify original filter list for their extension.

Also keep in mind, EasyList is updated multiple times a day. Once developer integrates list in MV3 ad blocker and pushes update, it needs to be approved by Google which might take up to a week. By the time you get the extension update, you're using heavily outdated version of EasyList.
 
It's not fair to compare filter lists coming from the source and filter lists built-into the extension. When you use MV2 ad blocker, it fetches resources from filter developer's host, always having up-to-date list. With MV3, filter lists are built-in extension which means filter list gets updated when extension gets updated. In that case, difference between blocking capability might not come from syntax rather than extensions using different versions of EasyList, some might even modify original filter list for their extension.

Also keep in mind, EasyList is updated multiple times a day. Once developer integrates list in MV3 ad blocker and pushes update, it needs to be approved by Google which might take up to a week. By the time you get the extension update, you're using heavily outdated version of EasyList.
Still uBOL (MV3) is more effecient the previously mentioned extensions (including Ghostery, excluding AG) even with the filter list updated only with extension update.

Again, the well-crafted extension performs much better with the same filter list used by less polished extension.
 
Still uBOL (MV3) is more effecient the previously mentioned extensions
I like its efficiency and minimalism in an ad blocker.

In addition, I've actually changed my thinking about MV3. µBOL in basic mode as default is excellent in terms of browser security.
even with the filter list updated only with extension update.
I use @Kees1958 list which only gets occasional updates. A minimal list in a minimalist ad blocker.
 
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Still uBOL (MV3) is more effecient the previously mentioned extensions (including Ghostery, excluding AG) even with the filter list updated only with extension update.

Again, the well-crafted extension performs much better with the same filter list used by less polished extension.
Honestly, all of them suck compared to MV2 versions. It's the one thing I'm not willing compromise on which is why I use Firefox.
 
It's a matter of time before MV2 is completely dead; uBOL is the best available one.
I'm not worried about that. Do you know why?

MV3 doesn't make ad blockers less efficient on its own. You can still have normal, full-fledged uBlock Origin with MV3; so it's not the issue. The only reason why ad blockers perform worse on Chromium over MV3 is because Google took away webRequest API and prevents extensions from using it.

Now... even though Mozilla said currently they don't have any plans to abandon MV2; when they do eventually adapt MV3, they promised to keep webRequest API so no extensions would be affected and ad blocking capability would remain the same.

It was Google that crippled ad blocking functionality by taking away important webRequest API; not the MV3 itself.
 
I like its efficiency and minimalism in an ad blocker.

In addition, I've actually changed my thinking about MV3. µBOL in basic mode as default is excellent in terms of browser security.
I agree 100%. Despite the controversy surrounding limitations, MV3 offers an objectively hardened architecture with a number of sensible changes. Researchers and engineers find it easy to express some kind of approval:
  • No remotely hosted code
  • Per-site permissions
  • Privilege escalation protection, forcing adblockers to use a secure internal blocker instead of webRequest API
  • Event-driven service workers, reducing RAM and battery footprint
  • Native content filter rule execution, giving better performance with an optimized C++ engine for blocking rules
  • Faster startup, because extensions aren't always on
  • Reduced data scraping
  • Better stability, fewer memories leaks without persistent background pages

uBOL + Control D DNS has left me more than satisfied.
 

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