Ad blocking software has become one of the major problems in the online publishing and advertising industries.

The use of software tools that detect ads on the website and then block them from users’ view are becoming popular as users don’t like their data being collected. Also, if there are lots of ads on a webpage, it will take more time to load and thus user experience is hindered.

According to a recent report by Adobe and PageFair, an Ireland based start-up, it is estimated that in 2015, approximately $22 billion will be lost as advertising revenue because one out of three Internet users use some sort of ad blocking software.

Two years back, most of the major publishers were not concerned with ad blocking plug-ins and software. But, now with the increased use of these softwares the free Internet may be threatened, as most of the websites providing free content depends on ads for their revenue.

Mathew Ingram, a tech reporter at Fortune wrote:

“For at least some players in the media industry this looks like a cross between a Class 5 hurricane and a neutron bomb headed straight for their balance sheets.”

AdBlock Plus has also released an Android extension and the company is now working to develop the software for iOS also. This is even more worrying for online publishers because till now mobile users didn’t use ad blocking software in large numbers.

There is one more bad news for publishers; the ad blocking software will now be part of the forthcoming iOS 9 release and will be native to the Safari browser.

Ben Williams, a spokesman for Eyeo, the company that makes Adblock Plus said:

“It’s clear to us that the ads ecosystem is broken. What we need is a sea change in the industry to get to a place where we have a good amount of better ads out there, ads that users accept.”

In the end, we have a question for you; Will the free Internet be threatened with our increased use of ad blocking software? Feel free to comment your views on this topic.