Is Adblock Plus Safe? Permissions, Privacy and Ownership Checked

Is Adblock Plus safe to use in 2026?

Adblock Plus is safe to use when you install the official version and keep it updated. It is one of the oldest ad blockers still maintained, its source code is public, and it is run by a registered company with a named address rather than an anonymous developer.

That does not make it risk-free. Any ad blocker sits between you and every page you open, so you are trusting its maker with a lot of access. The question is less 'is it malware?' and more 'do I trust eyeo's business model and update process?'. Most people who ask on Reddit or Stack Exchange land on the same answer: the extension is legitimate, but its default settings favour eyeo's advertising partners more than you might expect.

Is Adblock Plus legit?

Yes. It is a long-running, open-source product from eyeo GmbH, a German company, and it is distributed through the Chrome Web Store.

Is it spyware?

No evidence supports that. It needs broad access to block ads, but its code is published and it has not been caught selling browsing histories.

Main catch

Acceptable Ads is on by default, so some ads still show until you turn it off.

Biggest real-world risk

Installing a fake clone with a similar name and icon instead of the real listing.

If you want the short comparison with the most common alternative, see Adblock Plus vs uBlock Origin Lite. For the wider field, our ad blocker picks are ranked on privacy and permissions, not just blocking strength.

Who owns Adblock Plus, and can you trust the company?

Adblock Plus is owned and developed by eyeo GmbH, based in Cologne, Germany. It started as a Firefox add-on in the mid-2000s, created by developer Wladimir Palant, and eyeo was later set up around it as the business behind the project.

eyeo also runs AdBlock, a separate Chrome extension with a very similar name and a different icon. That shared ownership is visible in AdBlock's own manifest, which injects scripts on adblockplus.org account pages as well as getadblock.com. So choosing AdBlock instead of Adblock Plus does not mean choosing a different company.

Trust in eyeo comes down to three things. It is a real company subject to EU privacy law. Its extension code is open source, so researchers can and do inspect it. And it earns money openly through the Acceptable Ads program rather than by selling user data, which is the business model you should be most wary of in free extensions.

Wikipedia and eyeo's own site both document this history, and you can read the product page at adblockplus.org. If a listing claiming to be Adblock Plus links anywhere else as its homepage, treat it as suspect.

What permissions does Adblock Plus ask for?

Adblock Plus asks for access to all websites plus a set of technical permissions for blocking, scheduling updates and showing its menu. The table below uses the verified manifest of eyeo's sibling extension AdBlock, which is built on the same engine; Adblock Plus's own list is similar, and you can confirm yours on its Details page in chrome://extensions.

Nothing in that list is unusual for a full ad blocker. What you will not see is history, cookies or downloads, which would let an extension read your full history database or session cookies directly. Our guides to the all-URLs permission and the tabs permission explain each warning in more depth.

Can Adblock Plus really read and change all your data?

Technically yes: that warning means the extension could read the content of any page you open. Practically, that access is how it removes ads, and there is no public evidence that Adblock Plus reads or uploads your page content.

Chrome's wording is blunt on purpose. The same 'read and change all your data on all websites' line appears for password managers, translators and grammar checkers, because all of them need to touch the page. The warning tells you the size of the trust you are extending, not what the extension actually does with it.

Three things lower the risk with Adblock Plus specifically. Its code is open source, so behaviour changes can be spotted. Under Manifest V3, most blocking happens through Chrome's declarativeNetRequest engine, meaning Chrome itself drops the ad request rather than the extension reading every request body. And updates go through Chrome Web Store review before reaching you.

If you want an ad blocker that can run with less standing access, uBlock Origin Lite lets you choose a basic mode that does not need to read page content on every site, at the cost of weaker cosmetic filtering.

What does Adblock Plus do with your data, and what are the downsides?

Adblock Plus stores your filter lists and settings locally and says it collects only limited technical data, described in its privacy policy. The bigger downsides are not privacy leaks but default ads, occasional site breakage and the overhead of running filters on every page.

Filter list updates need the extension to contact eyeo's servers, which reveals basic details such as the extension version. That is ordinary for any software that auto-updates. Read the privacy policy yourself if you need the exact list, because policies change more often than extensions do.

• Acceptable Ads on by default: some non-intrusive ads from paying partners still appear until you switch the option off.
• Site breakage: blocking can break video players, checkout pages or login pop-ups; you will need to pause the extension on those sites.
• Anti-adblock walls: some publishers detect ad blockers and hide content, which no settings change fully fixes.
• Resource use: large filter lists take memory, though Manifest V3 moved most matching into Chrome itself.
• Name confusion: AdBlock, Adblock Plus and dozens of clones look alike in search results, which makes fake installs easy.

For most people the practical answer to 'can I trust AdBlock Plus?' is yes, provided you accept that its default setup is a compromise with advertisers. If that compromise bothers you, it takes one checkbox to undo.

Has Adblock Plus ever had a security problem?

Yes, once in a notable way. In 2019 a security researcher showed that a filter option called $rewrite could, in theory, let a malicious filter list maintainer run code on certain sites through Adblock Plus. eyeo removed the option quickly, and no real-world abuse was reported.

The lesson from that incident still applies: filter lists are powerful. Every list you subscribe to is written by someone, and Adblock Plus trusts those authors to decide what gets blocked or rewritten on your pages. Stick to the default lists and well-known regional or privacy lists.

The more frequent problem has been impostors. Over the years, fake extensions using the Adblock Plus name and a near-identical logo have appeared in the Chrome Web Store, some carrying adware. Google removes them when reported, but new ones can appear before that happens.

How to tell the real listing from a fake

• Install from the link on adblockplus.org rather than from search results.
• Check the publisher and website fields on the Web Store listing point to eyeo and adblockplus.org.
• Look at the listing's history and review volume; clones tend to be new with few reviews.
• After installing, open chrome://extensions, click Details and read the permission list; a clone asking for cookies or downloads is a red flag.

How do you make Adblock Plus safer in Chrome?

Turn off Acceptable Ads, prune your filter lists and keep it out of Incognito unless you need it there. The steps below take about two minutes on Windows, Mac, Linux or ChromeOS; menu labels can shift slightly between versions.

1. Click the puzzle-piece Extensions icon in the Chrome toolbar, then the pin icon next to Adblock Plus so its button stays visible.
2. Click the three-dot menu next to Adblock Plus and choose Options, or open chrome://extensions, click Details under Adblock Plus and choose Extension options.
3. On the General tab, find the Acceptable Ads section and untick Allow Acceptable Ads to block those ads as well.
4. Open the Advanced tab and review your filter lists. Remove any list you do not recognise; keep EasyList and the lists you added on purpose.
5. Back in chrome://extensions > Details, leave Allow in Incognito off unless you browse privately and want blocking there too.
6. Check Site access. An ad blocker needs On all sites to work, so leave it, but make sure no other extension has the same broad access without a reason.
7. Remove any second ad blocker. Two blockers do not double your protection; they double your trust surface and cause breakage.

See how we score extensions like this in our review methodology, and browse the permissions library for any warning you do not recognise.

What is the safest ad blocker for Chrome?

For most people, uBlock Origin Lite is the safest choice: it is free, open source, has no paid whitelist and can run with reduced site access. Adblock Plus is a reasonable second if you prefer its interface and switch off Acceptable Ads.

Pair one ad blocker with at most one redirect tool. For more options see our redirect blocker guide and the wider security and privacy category.

Is Adblock Plus safe on Android and iPhone?

Chrome on Android and iPhone does not run extensions, so the Chrome version of Adblock Plus only works on desktop and ChromeOS. On phones, eyeo offers separate products, and the safety logic is the same: install only from eyeo's own links and official app stores.

On iPhone and iPad, ad blockers work as Safari content blockers installed from the App Store. Apple's content-blocker model is fairly safe by design, because the blocker hands Safari a rule list and does not see the pages you visit. That makes the iPhone version lower risk than the desktop extension, though it cannot block ads inside Chrome for iOS.

On Android, eyeo has offered a browser with blocking built in and support for Samsung Internet. Be careful with sideloaded APK files promising Adblock Plus for Chrome on Android; no such extension exists, so those files are at best misleading.

Back on desktop, you can keep reading on our blog for more extension safety checks, or open the uBlock Origin Lite profile if you are ready to switch.