Not a fan of ads when you browse the Web on your phone? You're not alone.
A day after Apple released iOS 9, which supports ad-blocking extensions on Safari, apps like Peace, Purify Blocker, and Crystal are shooting up the App Store charts. The $2.99 app Peace, which promises to "dramatically speed up web browsing by blocking most ads and privacy-invading trackers on web pages," is now the No. 1 paid iPhone and iPad app, pushing Mojang's ultra-popular Minecraft: Pocket Edition to the runner-up slot.
And the makers of Peace aren't the only ones cashing in on your hatred for ads today. The $2.99 Purify Blocker, dubbed the "simplest, fastest premium native blocker for Safari" currently ranks No. 3 for iPhones while the $0.99 ad blocker Crystal sits at No. 6.
Apple in June first announced that iOS 9 would give developers "a fast and efficient way to block cookies, images, resources, pop-ups, and other content." While users have been quick to snap up ad-blocking apps, not everyone is a fan.
The Neiman Journalism Lab at Harvard, for instance, called the new feature "worrisome," arguing that publishers "already make tiny dollars on mobile." And given Safari's massive popularity — it is by far the most used mobile browser in the U.S. — this could mean trouble for advertisers.
"Publishers are about to see some percentage of their mobile ads…disappear," Nieman Journalism Lab Director Joshua Benton wrote in a blog post Thursday. "Will it be a rounding error, or is this the beginning of the end for a certain kind of online advertising, the way popup ads were killed by technology in the early 2000s?"
For now, we'll just have to wait and see.