The first browser extension that blocks all ads and shares profits with users.

ADS-Free. How we're building the world's best ad-blocking app.

The beginning.Part 1.

The first time I came face-to-face with an ad—I lost.

My name is Sofia.

A couple words about me for now: I'm 29 years old, single, and love to travel, dogs, maths, and nice people.

I'll tell more about myself and our team later, but now let's go back to the main topic.

The first time I faced the problem when I was writing my thesis in mathematics.

On websites and page after page, I saw not what I needed but an eternal amount of ads everywhere.

Popups, banners, overlays, and many other bits of info I never wanted to see!

Just imagine how stressful it is when you're working on a high-stakes task with a tight deadline, and those damn ads keep getting in the way!!!

It was driving me crazy!!!

My main task—writing my thesis on advanced mathematics—was getting lost in a massive pile of pointless ads that I hadn’t chosen!

Until you reach out for what you want, these ad algorithms show you tons of informational garbage and steal your lifetime.

It's growing like a rolling snowball, becoming bigger and bigger with each turnover.

I couldn't solve the problem at the time, so I had to wade through all that mess, but the most important thing is that I successfully submitted my thesis—congratulations are in order!

That was one of my first and most intense encounters with advertising in my personal life.

That’s because it wasn’t as widespread on social media as it was on regular websites back then.

Each day it is getting worse.

Ad algorithms are becoming smarter daily, and many extensions to block them are starting to lose this fight for a clean internet without noisy waste.

Many extensions for blocking ads use 'shady' tricks and play both sides.

They get money from big companies to add them to the whitelist by default in their solutions.

How do you like it now?

Betrayal in its purest form.

Let's together take a look under the microscope: What is advertising?

1) Information you don't want to see ever.

2) Data you aren't asking for.

3) What do 99% of ADS want from us? Our money.

One of the main points here is:

Ad's length = stolen time from your life.

Seconds becoming minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years of ads stealing your lifetime.

Our lifetime is irreplaceable and therefore priceless.

Advertisements are stealing our precious lives.

I continue my story in the second part.

Part 2. I Tried to Ignore It.

I told myself it wasn’t a real problem.

I tried to convince myself that it was just a small part of the internet.

Something you can accept like a wise person. Like slow Wi-Fi at an airport or a crying baby on a long flight.

It’s annoying, but inevitable—just like the various challenges we face in life.

At that moment, I did what many of you are doing today: I started looking for a solution to this annoying problem.

“Best ad blocker.”

I got hundreds of different results.

Websites, articles, blogs, rankings, comparisons, “Top 10 extensions you need in 2026!!!”

It was so ironic.

Even the search for blocking ads… was full of ads.

I picked a few. Installed them. One by one into my Chrome browser.

At first, it felt like a magic dream.

Pages became cleaner and quicker.

In those moments, I thought.

Finally. Someone already solved this.

But that feeling didn’t last long with me.

Because the ads didn’t totally disappear.

They adapted. Some came back as blank spaces.

Others slipped through like they were invisible.

In the worst cases ads just broke the whole websites, and they stopped working.

Videos wouldn’t load. Buttons stopped working. Pages refused to open unless I “turned off my ad blocker.”

So now I had new problems, not just about ads.

Eternal 'negotiations' with websites I visited.

Every site felt like a small argument:

“Please, disable your blocker.”

“No.”

“Then you don’t get access.”

“Ok.”

Pop-up. Click. Disable. Refresh. Re-enable.

Over. And over. Over and over again.

It wasn’t freedom. It was an illusion of freedom.

Then I noticed something deep.

Something small at first sight.

Settings I hadn’t ever touched. Options I hadn’t agreed to.

They called it 'exceptions.'

“Acceptable ads.”

Do you see what I see? Extensions for block ads forced me to look at a list of unavoidable advertising campaigns!

I remember how staring at that phrase literally took something like 20 seconds.

Acceptable… to who???!!!!

Not for me!

I installed an ad blocker not to see different kinds of ads.

I installed it to get rid of them!

It was the turning point.

When the doubts started, they filled up my brain.

The tools I used must protect me…

Why do they feel like it's a compromise?

So I began reading.

Not reviews from other people.

Not blog posts or videoblogs.

I started reading actual documentation.

Threads. Forums, comments buried under comments.

The deeper I dived into it, the less comfortable I felt.

The problem wasn’t just technical.

It was… structural.

It wasn't protection from ads.

It was a 'grey' and compromise deal with whitelists, closed-source code, and much more.

Money flowing in directions users never see.

The deal sounds like, 'Our extension blocks many ads and allows some from companies who paid us.'

You want more? Paid us for advanced tariff, but even there you will see ads from our sponsors.

Suddenly everything made sense for all of these apps:

1. No free plans or temporary free ones with very limited functionality.

2. Closed source code.

3. Paid plans.

4. Tracking.

5. Tricky and vague privacy policy.

6. An ugly and completely confusing user interface. When you see all these different options, but there’s no explanation anywhere of what they actually mean. It’s like stepping into an airplane cockpit where there are hundreds of buttons, and to you, it’s just a jumble of noise.

7. The app was created by some corporation. We all know that corporations don’t care about users or our privacy; what matters to them is money and how much advertising they can sell based on the web traffic they generate.

8. No direct line with technical support, or in most cases, the questions I sent to tech support went unanswered.

9. Simply not working apps. I installed about three or five apps that didn't block ads at all.

10. Malicious code. Like many people, I'm well aware of the dangers of the internet and always thoroughly check any software I install on my computer. Here’s the surprising part: in total, more than 37% of the ad-blocking apps I wanted to download a file that contained malicious code!

11. The leaks.

12. The exceptions.

13. Blocking not only ads but also content that users need on website pages.

14. Frequent mistakes and website crashes.

All of the apps I researched about always have five or more points from the list above.

The feeling that something wasn’t fully under my control.

I leaned back in my chair and just sat there for a while.

Not angry.

Just… truly disappointed.

I had assumed someone out there had already built a clean solution.

Something honest and strict. Something that didn’t negotiate with the very thing it claimed to fight.

But the more I looked and dived into it, the more it became clear:

That solution didn’t really exist.

Or even if it did…

It wasn’t easy to find.

And definitely not something I could trust for 100%.

I did what most people do when something is broken but still “works.”

I adapted. I kept using those extensions. Ignored what I could.

I compromised and told myself: “This is acceptable enough.”

But there was one big problem. It didn’t solve my task and, moreover, put me in even greater danger.

When I was trying to focus and when every interruption broke my thinking.

Not when I realized how much time I was still losing—not solving my life tasks by wasting time on page reloads or dealing with sites that crashed because of ad blockers or even having to look for other sites altogether because the ads were unbearable.

It was the same thing all over again, just in a different context. The ads prevented me from doing the work I needed to do and wasted my time.

And here’s the main thought that flashed through my mind at that moment: “I won’t and I don’t want to put up with this!”

That thought stayed with me.

And it wasn’t going away.

I continue my story in the third part.

Part 3. Advertising banners are just the top of the iceberg. What lies hidden beneath is far more terrifying.

The night I looked behind the curtain, I saw a ghost.

I just couldn’t let it go. That thought from before—it stayed.

It's been stuck in my mind.

Quiet. Persistent. Increasing. Annoying.

One night, instead of ignoring it, I decide to follow it.

It was a late night.

The kind of late where everything in a town is silent and your brain starts asking better questions than during the day.

I opened my laptop.

Curiosity drove me forward.

Just one quick look. That “quick look” turned into hours.

“No distractions,” I told myself, just move straight to the point.

Tabs were multiplying like cells in that night. One article led to another.

Then documentation, forums, and videos.

Then something deeper.

It dawned on me just how much deeper this goes than ordinary advertising.

And that’s when I stopped being just a user.

I started seeing the whole system.

Not ADS. Not websites. Not banners.

The whole system.

The invisible curtain was finally opened in milliseconds.

Tracking scripts are watching everything and everyone.

Profiles being built silently in the background.

Not because we asked. Not because we agreed. But because we existed online.

Ads? They were just the surface.

Just a drop in the ocean filled with enormous monsters.

The visible pinnacle of something much bigger.

I remember sitting there, staring at the screen and thinking:

This isn’t just noisy banners anymore.

This is big infrastructure.

And suddenly, everything clicked!

Why did ads keep coming back?

Why did blockers feel inconsistent?

Why did “acceptable ads” even exist?

What if they're all in cahoots?

What if the companies whose ads are driving us all crazy are working together?

The global value for the advertising market in 2026 is around $1,200,000,000,000 per year.

Look at this number again and count zeros.

It's $1.2 trillion.

Systems like these weren't designed to be blocked!

It was designed to survive at any cost!!!

Any means whatever it would be.

To adapt, to negotiate, to lull our minds into a false sense of security with compromises, and ultimately come out on top and win.

When I realised the full extent of what was happening around... I was just… trying to hide from it.

That realisation changed something in me.

Understanding the truth opens one's eyes.

I wasn’t frustrated anymore. I was focused.

I continue my story in the fourth part.

Part 4. The day I decided to fight back. My first small but huge achievement.

It didn’t feel heroic like in superhero movies.

No dramatic music. No big speech. Just my simple decision.

If it doesn’t exist… I build it.

I laughed right after thinking it.

Me? Build it?

I was writing a thesis in mathematics—not building browser extensions or anything like that.

I just didn’t know where to start.

Didn’t know the tools or programming languages.

Didn’t know the rules.

But I knew one main thing:

What I didn’t want.

No “acceptable ads.”

No hidden deals.

No half-solutions.

No compromises and no trackers!

So I started small.

I searched websites, forums, and blogs.

Reading different documentations.

Breaking things.

I found out which programming languages the ad-blocking app is written in.

These are the three key languages: HTML, JavaScript, and JSON, plus CSS styles, which is a design language, so I didn’t include them in the fourth point.

So here was the deal.

Create my first HTML page.

I have never done it before. But then I decided no matter how difficult it may be, I will do it, because to defeat this advertising monster that stalks every internet user and collects data on us, we need to be stronger than it is.

I found a tutorial video on YouTube (which is ironic, because while I was watching it and learning my first programming language, it showed me several ads), and after watching it, I learned the key elements of the markup language and what software I needed to start building my own website.

I downloaded Notepad++.

For me, it was my first experience of stepping into the unknown—nothing and no one else around, just a blank Notepad++ page and me.

And so it began.

Once I figured out what I needed to test my extension in my browser and how to enter Chrome Developer Mode, I set about creating my first HTML page.

Refreshing pages over and over. Nothing worked at first.

Change the encoding to UTF-8, a missing markup tag in the file, and many other mistakes that beginners make.

Then something worked… a little.

But before that, there was a moment.

A quiet, almost ridiculous milestone.

I finally created my first HTML page...

It was nothing special. Just a few lines.

But it was mine. It existed.

First attempt… nothing but error.

'The manifest file is missing or unreadable. Could not load manifest.'

Then I added a manifest.json file.

I didn’t fully understand it yet—I just followed instructions, guessed, and adjusted.

I put everything into a single folder and named it 'ads-free.'

That was the first name that came to mind—simple, concise, and right to the point.

My efforts to fix the first error paid off after a few minutes, and finally...

Second attempt… new error.

The required key 'manifest_version' is missing or invalid.

Ok, I was continued searching to get rid of this one.

Third attempt…

It opened!!!!!!!

Right there in my browser!!!

In developer mode!

I just stared at it over a couple minutes.

No applause. No fireworks. No adoring glances from hundreds or thousands of people around!

But to me, it was huge!

A giant step.

Because something great is changed.

This thing that lived only in my thoughts… was now real.

Visible.

Runnable.

Alive.

From that moment, I wasn’t just reading anymore.

I was building.

I will continue my story in the fifth part.

Part 5. The first ad banner was blocked by the app I created.

I dived into a mountain of documentation and started looking into how to create filters to block ads.

This is one of the key components of the solution.

I thought that was the hardest part of the solution, and I was right.

What is the primary goal of an ADS-FREE app from the perspective of my mathematical background?

1) Block 100% of all ads.

2) Leave 100% of all non-advertising content untouched.

3) Teach my app to always distinguish between these things.

I found plenty of pre-made filters, such as the Easylist file, but they were just a drop in the bucket compared to what still lay ahead.

I wondered where to start. The very first thing that came to mind was that awful ad on YouTube.

What should I have done at the beginning?

The HTML markup and the time I spent on it over the course of a few days paid off, and now I understood how it worked.

Identify the HTML tag where this ad appears on YouTube.

Later on, I found out there were better ways to do it, but that was the first thing that came to mind.

I went to YouTube.

I clicked on the video I wanted to watch, and an ad popped up.

I right-clicked on the ad banner and selected “Inspect Element.”

And there it was: the HTML tag where the ad appeared.

I copied this tag and pasted it into a plain text file.

At that point, I was faced with another challenge.

How do I add this to my app so that it blocks this ad?

I checked out a couple more blogs on JSON markup and added my own rule to my rules.json file so that it would block that tag on YouTube.

It was the first rule in my file, but it was a start.

That ad block I identified in the HTML code didn't show up at all!

That was my first victory!

One of the million tentacles of that ad monster had been severed!

I refreshed the page to make sure!

Still gone.

That tiny moment? It mattered more than it should have.

Because it proved something. Not that I had solved the problem.

But it could be solved if you really wished it.

Small victories mixed with mistakes, all leading toward the goal.

That night, I didn’t build a product.

I crossed a line.

From complaining, helpless, ignoring… to creating.

I had no idea just how long the road ahead would be.