The extension has been released for Mozilla Firefox (including mobile),[13] Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, and Android.

[15][16] The original version of Adblock (0.1) was written as a side project for Firefox by Danish software developer Henrik Aasted Sørensen, a university student at the time, in 2002.

The extension supported not just Firefox, but less popular applications like SeaMonkey, K-Meleon, Fennec, Prism, and even the Songbird media player because they each included Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine.

[25] After Firefox and Microsoft Edge adopted Google's Web Extensions API, the Chrome version became the basis for those browsers as well.

Users can download the .Apk file directly and install it as a third-party app if they allow "Unknown Sources" in Android settings.

[28] Adblock Plus was made available for Internet Explorer in August 2013,[29] Safari since January 2014,[30] and Yandex Browser since December 2014.

[36] On rooted devices, the Android app blocks ads on all web traffic including mobile networks.

For non-rooted devices, ads are only blocked through a Wi-Fi connection and requires the user to set up a local proxy server for each network in order for the app to function.

[37] The app uses a local proxy server to intercept web traffic and remove ads before showing content to the user.

Filterset.G is incompatible with this system (and Adblock Plus specifically recommends against using Filterset.G for other reasons as well), but other filtersets can be added by typing their addresses.

[41] Created by Rick Petnel,[42] it became officially recommended by the Adblock Plus program, and filter lists for other languages were built on top of it.

Both of these filter lists will also be used by Google Chrome starting February 15, 2018, on sites not complying with the Better Ads Standards.

[47] In December 2014, it was reported that Zeit Online and Handelsblatt had brought suit against Eyeo GmbH in the Landgericht Hamburg [de].

[56][better source needed] However, in April 2018, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court found in favour of Eyeo and ruled that Adblock Plus did not violate any laws.

[57] In August 2017, the Admiral advertising company sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to EasyList to remove the domain functionalclam.com from the blacklist.

Admiral argues that the domain is part of its access control technology of its advertising platform, and therefore the blacklisting is an attempt to circumvent a technical protection measure, which is forbidden under the DMCA section 1201.

Detection is simplified since the extension is not yet capable of replacing content; Loopback proxies provide this additional functionality.

[62] The solution for this issue arrived in Google Chrome 18, and required each developer to make changes to their extensions.

[78] He alleged that Adblock Plus whitelisted all ads coming from "friendly" sites and subsidiaries, and promoted their product using fake reviews and pornography.

[79] Faida responded to Pallenberg's accusations, stating that "a large part of the information concerning the collaboration with our partners is correct", but that the company did not see these industry connections as a conflict of interest.

He said that the company is convinced that the "acceptable ads" business model will be successful and says that the whitelisting criteria are "completely transparent".

[79] Attacks were made in 2016 against ad-blocking with paid whitelists—though Adblock Plus was not mentioned by name—by content providers who provide content free of charge to users, deriving revenue from advertisements, and by industry and government sources who criticise the "unsavoury" business model, which has been described as a "modern-day protection racket".