Adblock Plus releases its own browser for Android devices

With more than 300-million downloads and counting, Adblock Plus is one of the most popular extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and other web browsers. However, with the mobile versions of these browsers being relatively locked down, the company’s success has yet to extend to iOS, Android and other portable platforms.

That might change today thanks to the release of the Adblock Plus browser for Android. Built on top of Firefox, Adblock’s browser does exactly what it promises to do: block ads.

The experience of using the browser should be familiar to anyone that has used Firefox in the past. That said, Adblock had to make several compromises to make to get the browser functioning. One of the main issues is that several features found in the vanilla version of Firefox don’t work here, including support for third-party extensions, and access to Firefox’s synchronization tools.

This is actually the second ad blocking effort the company has released on Android. In 2013, Google removed the company’s original app because of how it would cause other apps to stop functioning.

Indeed, throughout its existence Adblock Plus has had an interesting relationship with Google. In the same year that Google pulled its app from the Play store, a report came out that the search giant was paying the company to whitelist its ads.

Adblock Plus says that its browser will eventually come to iOS, though it’s hard to see Apple allowing the app onto the App Store.

Although it’s currently not showing up on the Google Play store, an APK of the app can be downloaded from AdBlock’s Google+ page, or by registering to be a beta tester.

Download the browser, sure, just please don’t block the ads on MobileSyrup. This man’s got cats to feed.

[source]Adblock Plus[/source][via]Engadget[/via]