Nobody loves intrusive pop-ups while they’re trying to browse or stream. Wanna know how to block ads on Chrome effectively? Well, you’re in the right place, and unfortunately, people have turned their attention to creating even more novel ways to deliver ads to web users from this day forward.
If you’ve tried searching for a way to block ads on Chrome, you’ve likely heard of Pie AdBlock – an extension that claims to make your web experience both ad-free and gives you rewards for seeing some ads if you decide to!
This is a Pie AdBlock review of their privacy, as well as speed and ease of use and how well it works on sites like YouTube, Twitch and Netflix.
Pie Adblock Reviews: Privacy Features
Like other ad blockers, Pie AdBlock needs fairly broad browser permissions (it must be able to read and modify data on sites to strip out ads). The company makes it plain that it does not sell your data. And information it collects (like generic stats on blocked ads or your email, if you sign up for its rewards program) is supposedly applied only to fuel Pie’s features — none of it is shared with third parties.
If you use Pie just to block ads, with the rewards set to off, it acts like any other ad blocker and doesn’t send information about you. The developers claim to be complying with privacy regulations (such as GDPR). Crucially, Pie AdBlock’s standing is excellent: it has an almost perfect 4.9/5 rating on the Chrome Web Store (thousands of reviews), which indicates a high level of trust among users.
Pie AdBlock is even highlighted on the Chrome Web Store by Google itself, which demonstrates its reliability. As usual with any add-on, taking proper precautions is a good habit to get into at least until we have a few weeks’ worth of traffic and installation telemetry to confirm it’s good to go, but as of now, there have been no red flags or scandals proving Pie is unsafe.
Speed and Performance
Pie AdBlock is lean and will not slow down your browsing. It can, in fact, help websites load faster (because you won’t download those elements at all) by blocking heavy ads and pop-ups. The extension is tiny and operates quietly in the background.
And by and large, people say that Chrome feels just as snappy with Pie as it does without it. And even if you flip on Pie’s feature that allows rewards, MOST LIKELY, you will notice nothing in terms of performance — at best, you may see a minimal spike in memory use at the time a sponsored ad is presented.
In sum, Pie AdBlock has very little performance overhead, letting you get rid of ads effortlessly.
User Interface and Usability
The Pie AdBlock is very clean and simple. It’s easy to install too – just add it to Chrome from the web store and it’ll start blocking ads right away with no complex setup required. Once installed, you should see a Pie icon in your browser’s toolbar.
Clicking that icon opens a neat menu where you can look at how many ads were blocked on the current page, temporarily allow ads on the site you’re on or go into your settings. The settings panel is easy to comprehend and allows you to turn features on or off with a single click, such as the “Rewards” mode.
Even if you didn’t touch any settings, Pie works brilliantly straight out of the box. You don’t need to know anything technical – it “just works”. They like that it operates quietly in the background without spammy notifications or complicated menus.
And if you want to fiddle with things a bit, you can whitelist specific sites (or even individual YouTube channels) so that their ads aren’t blocked. All in all, the interface is clean, newbie-friendly and anything but confusing, which means people new to adblocking can comfortably use Pie AdBlock.
Compatibility with Streaming Sites
This library gets popular use because many people use ad blockers to skip ads on video platforms, and Pie AdBlock doesn’t let you down in this department. It does a great job of blocking YouTube ads – so you can kiss goodbye intrusive pre-roll and mid-roll ads on longer videos.
On Pie, YouTube experiences as if you have Premium, as the vast number of ads won’t play at all. And what makes it even better is that this extension updates constantly in order to compete with any changes that YouTube makes to the website; therefore, you can pretty much watch your favourite channels without ad interruptions.
Pie AdBlock also fights off those pesky Twitch ads that play during live streams. There are mid-stream commercials, and we know Twitch gets to be a bit overwhelming with pop-up ads, but these are usually subtle. You can watch live without the familiar “ad break in progress” messages (occasionally an ad will break through or you’ll see a brief alert, but Pie’s group is fast to punt fixes).
For services like Netflix and Disney+, there are no normal ads for an ad blocker to strip out — there are only ads if you use an ad-supported plan, and those ads are part of the stream itself. Pie isn’t able to bypass ads embedded by the streaming service, which couldn’t hurt the viewing experience either.
In a nutshell, Pie AdRoppler blocks video ads, pop-ups, and banners at intervals while using the same on a variety of sites – news sites, video hosts, and free movie sites. And Pie will always block the ads you don’t want to see — on a streaming service, it’s the ad you don’t want to see that you’re really there to block, and Pie proves happy to oblige.
Conclusion: Who Should Use Pie Adblock?
If you’re a Chrome user tired of seeing everything, then Pie AdBlock is probably the protection you’re looking for. It’s easy for beginners to use and operates silently in the background, stripping unwanted ads and pop-ups from websites.
Anyone who uses Chrome and is tired of ads can benefit. It’s easy enough for casual users to understand, but features such as whitelisting and an optional rewards system add appeal for more tech-savvy users as well. The rewards option is a neat bonus for anyone who wishes to see the occasional ad, but you don’t have to – the feature can safely be ignored, and is totally optional when you get tired of seeing ads. Of course, if you categorically eschew any browser extension that needs sweeping permissions (and they all do to some extent), there’s little downside in trying out Pie.
All in all, Pie AdBlock is an impressive ad blocker for Chrome that we can safely recommend. It is a cleaner and faster web and respects user privacy…and allows web publishers to get something back from online ads. For all those asking how to block ads on Chrome without any fuss, Pi AdBlock is worth a shot.
