A lead investor in Adblock Plus suggests that in the US, the percentage of ads blocked is more like 5%. Both argue that this number is growing fast, but then, they're also in the business of selling solutions to Web publishers. PageFair says that the current ad-blocking rate – that is, the average percentage of Web ads being blocked – is around 23%, while ClarityRay pegs it closer to 10%.
At this rate, searches for ad blockers will soon overtake those for Lady Gaga – although to be fair, the pop queen is in something of a bear market. By November, "adblock" was a more popular Google query than "kittens." Last year search interest doubled again.
In 2012, however, search interest in them nearly doubled. Around since the '90s, these browser extensions – which can remove all Web advertisements, or just those deemed offensive – had enjoyed a mild but stagnant success. This was also the year that ad blockers took off.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg had long since made his peace with advertising, but it wasn't until Facebook's IPO that users began to feel the full weight of this revenue stream, when ads began to displace status updates and photos. Monetization was in the air the social network rolled out news feed ads in January, promoted posts in the springtime, and sponsored search results that summer. Think back to 2012 - a big year for Facebook and its users.