Testing Browser Ad Blocking Effectiveness and Compatibility

To objectively evaluate a browser’s ad blocking effectiveness, simply “visiting several websites with ads” is often not accurate enough: the actual effectiveness depends not only on the quantity and quality of blocking rules you subscribe to, but also on the browser’s compatibility with rule syntax (such as ABP).

This article shares a simple and reliable benchmark testing tool adblock-tester, and uses X Browser as an example to provide complete testing steps and result interpretation.

Testing Tool

• Test Website: https://adblock-tester.com/

How to Test (Recommended Steps)

1. Enable ad blocking in X Browser.
2. Import or subscribe to your commonly used blocking rules.
3. Open the test website and complete the test: https://adblock-tester.com/
4. Record the score and pass rate of each capability, and compare results under different rules/configurations.

If you want to learn about the basic concepts and syntax of blocking rules, you can read:

• Ad Blocking Overview
• URL Blocking Rules

Test Result Example (X Browser)

Below is the test result after enabling ad blocking in X Browser and importing the merged ABP rules: score of 100 points.

This shows that in that version, X Browser achieved a good level of compatibility with common rule syntax and blocking effectiveness.

Precautions

• Test scores will vary with the rules you enable, whitelist settings, strong blocking mode, etc.
• If your test score is low, it is recommended to first confirm:
  • Whether ad blocking is enabled
  • Whether rules have been successfully imported/subscribed
  • Whether exception rules/whitelist have been enabled for the test site

Related Resources

• Test Website: https://adblock-tester.com/
• Merged ABP Rules: https://bitbucket.org/hacamer/adrules/raw/main/adblock.txt
• Ad Blocking Documentation Series:
  • Ad Blocking Overview
  • Writing Element Hiding Rules
  • How to Write Exception Rules
  • Strong Blocking Mode and Rules