Even if mere days ago, it looked like we could openly make use of at least one browser without a swarm of ads, it would appear that Samsung giveth and Google taketh away ad blockers. After even less than a week of Android users only having to compromise to use the Samsung Browser in order to get ad-free navigation, Google straight out removed the ad blockers that were supported by the browser just yesterday.

Apparently, the initiative that Samsung had – albeit well intentioned – goes right against Google Play policies by “interfering with other apps and services”. Thus Google removed the Adblock Fast from the store right away. The ad blocker in question had become one of the most popular hits over the weekend and it got removed after a 3-paragraph notice sent to the developers, stating that the app violated section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement.

Individuals who have been following the situation may find themselves a little appalled at the story as Adblock Fast uses Samsung’s code in its programming – the same coding that was approved by Samsung. And hilariously enough, Adblock Plus is a program that uses the exact same kind of code as Adblock Fast and yet, the former has not yet been called out and removed from Google Play.

Then again, Adblock Plus gave up the idea of creating an extension that would help remove ads from pages and instead creating an entire new ad-free browser. Maybe that’s why Adblock Plus managed to pass Google’s security gate and Adblock Fast didn’t. And the entire ordeal seems a little hilarious as Samsung had made a deal with Adblock Fast and Google budged in because it did not find the partnership as a good enough reason to allow third party apps running on phone manufacturers.

Now that Adblock Fast is gone from the Play Store, there’s not that huge amount of variety of adblockers you can still get yourself if you’re running an Android device. You can still find and use Crystal, the very popular iOS ad blocker. Your only other alternative would finally be Adblock Plus – the app that is bundled with the company’s own browser to begin with.

Recently, Google seems to have been tightening the reins in an attempt to throttle the decline of mobile web traffic. The reason behind the decline is individuals’ preference of apps over browsers; and said apps can rarely bake in the adds that would otherwise bring the company revenue – like it would on its classic search engine.

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