AdBlock is a great thing to have. There are few things more annoying when browsing the Internet than clicking on a website and being confronted with an endless cycle of redirecting popup ads. With AdBlock, you can prevent this from happening.
But like most great things (except Oldschool Runescape and pizza), AdBlock is not perfect. In some instances, AdBlock is too good at its job and ends up blocking ads that you genuinely would want to see. It’s kind of like how your email provider might accidentally end up putting promotional emails into your spam folder when said promotional emails are ones that you’d actually want to see.
Luckily for us consumers, whitelisting is a thing. If you are familiar with the term blacklisting, then I am sure you can guess what whitelisting is. Blacklisting blocks out things that you don’t want to see, and whitelisting allows you to approve of content that you do want to see.
Ad revenue is really big for websites, and in many cases, is the only thing keeping these websites in the green. So letting their ads show up on your computer when you browse their website is a good way for you to show your support for said website and help it keep running.
Today, we will be going over how you can whitelist websites while using ad blocking apps for Chrome (Such as AdBlock and AdBlock Plus).
How do I whitelist a website in Chrome?
Whitelisting websites on Chrome is pretty easy. You can do it directly from your Chrome browser by following these steps:
Click on the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand side of the screen
- Click on Settings
- Once here, click on the three horizontal lines in the upper left-hand side of the screen
- Head down to Advanced Settings and click on privacy and security
- Click on site settings
- Click on ads
- Under the allow section, input any websites that you want ads enabled on
How do I whitelist a website in AdBlock?
There are multiple ways users can whitelist websites in AdBlock. Here are a few of them:
- Click on the AdBlock button.
- Select the option don’t run on pages on this site.
AdBlock Plus
- Click on the AdBlock Plus button
- Click on the options section of the menu.
- In this window, you should see a section called whitelisted domains. Click on this.
- In the whitelisted domains section, input the name of any website that you wish to be whitelisted into the small textbox that you see. After that, click add domain. Said website or websites should no longer be affected by AdBlock Plus.
Whitelisting Websites on Mobile Devices
If you are using AdBlock or AdBlock Plus on your mobile device, it is also possible for you to whitelist devices. The method is a bit different than it is on desktops or laptops, however.
- In AdBlock for Mobile click on Settings.
- Once in your settings, click on the whitelist websites option.
- Once here, type in the domain name of whatever website that you would like ads to run on.
- Give the system time, and it should automatically update your whitelist filters to allow ads on any website that you’d like.
An alternative option for mobile users: Disabling content blocking
Things to Keep in Mind
Enabling whitelisting differs depending on your browser.
The above whitelisting options work specifically for users of the Chrome browser. If you use a different browser such as Safari or Firefox, then it’ll be slightly different.
If you ever change your mind on allowing certain websites to run ads, then removing them from your whitelist is very simple. Just go back to the above steps and remove them from your whitelist.
If you are a frequent user of the Internet, you probably visit a lot of webpages every day. And if this is the case, it can get easy to forget which website is whitelisted and which website is not. Thanks to the resource page of AdBlock and AdBlock Plus, you’ll be able to keep track of every webpage that you have whitelisted.
To find the AdBlock and AdBlock Plus resource page, here is what you need to do:
- Click on the AdBlock Button.
- Select Options.
- In the general tab, select I’m an advanced user, show me advanced options
- Click on any website that you’d like to see data on, and select the Inspect button. This will open up the Developer Tools.
- Click on the AdBlock button and then reload the webpage.
- Select the Show menu. You should be able to see exactly what is block and what isn’t.
- When you’re done, just close out the tab.
If you are using the Safari browser, then you won’t be able to do this. Take this as a sign to ditch Safari.
Whitelisting is a very useful thing, but it is not without side effects. One notable side effect is that if you screw up the process, not only will ads not run, but the entire website might not run.