In AdBlock, you can display the blocked ads counter on the AdBlock toolbar icon and on the dropdown menu. Likewise, the feature can be disabled altogether. This feature automatically displays in the AdBlock for Safari Mac app.
How to show or hide the number of ads blocked
- Click the AdBlock icon in your browser toolbar and select the gear symbol.
- On the General page, select/deselect Show number of ads blocked on AdBlock button or Show number of ads blocked on AdBlock menu.
What you'll see:
Something is blocked but the AdBlock icon shows nothing is blocked
When ad blockers can't prevent an ad or other page resources from being downloaded, they can use page styling rules to hide it. In Chrome, Firefox and Edge the icon badge only shows resources that are blocked, not hidden.
Why do we make this distinction? We try to balance information against performance. Counting hidden resources takes a lot of your computer's resources, which can significantly slow your browsing.
In Chrome, Firefox, and Edge you can see what AdBlock is hiding and which filter list is hiding it.
Restoring the total number of blocked ads after reinstalling AdBlock
We store the total number of blocked ads in your browser's persistent storage. Persistent storage is deleted entirely when you uninstall an extension. However, if you remember the total number (or can approximate it) you can use the following steps to set AdBlock's counter to start at that number instead of zero after a reinstall.
- Open the Chrome Extensions page (Three dots > More Tools > Extensions or open a new tab and enter chrome://extensions).
- Enable Developer Mode in the upper right corner of the page.
- Find AdBlock in the list of extensions.
- To the right of "Inspect views," click background page. The Chrome Developer Tools window opens.
- Select the Console tab.
- Enter the following command, where "x" is the valid integer:
Prefs.blocked_total = x
- Open about:flags in the address bar.
- Under Developer settings, select Enable extension developer features.
- Restart Edge.
- Open the Edge Extension panel by clicking the More menu (...) and selecting Extensions.
- On the Edge Extension panel, click AdBlock.
- On the AdBlock extension panel next to Inspect:, click Background page. A new Edge window will open.
- Select the Console tab.
- Enter the following commands, where "x" is a valid integer:
var key = "blockage_stats";
var data = storage_get(key);
data.total = x;
storage_set(key, data);