Rocco Penn
Ad-blockers are a dime a dozen nowadays, and they all do the same thing in roughly the same way, so in order for any newcomers to succeed, they need to find a way to differentiate themselves. Goodblock does this in the most admirable way possible, by allowing users to watch specific advertisements that give 30% or more of their revenue to charitable causes of the users choice. The best part about this is the fact that the feature is entirely optional. If you don’t feel like watching ads for a good cause, you simply don’t opt-in to them. Unfortunately, the extension is only available on Google Chrome at the moment, but a Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox version are coming soon.
There was a time when ad-blockers did what they said on the metaphorical tin: Stop advertisements from appearing while their users browse the Web. But in an increasingly crowded market with multiple tools promising to declutter websites, new ad-blockers need a schtick to differentiate themselves from the competition. Goodblock, an extension available as a public beta, is one of those newcomers. It performs the standard function of blocking ads — that’s in the job description — but it also gives users the option of periodically viewing advertisements that give at least 30 percent of their revenues back to the charitable cause of their choice. The actual mechanisms, which involve what the company behind Goodblock calls an “ambassador butterfly” named Tad as well as using virtual hearts as currency, is a little more complicated but that’s the gist of the extension. It’s available now for Google Chrome, and it will expand to Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari soon. The ads themselves are static images that will take up an entire browser screen. Users can decide not to view the ads — just leave the ambassador butterfly alone! — and Goodblock will continue to block all the ads that would otherwise appear. Gladly, the company behind the app, has basically built a guilt-free ad-blocker.
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