The Impact of Ads & Trackers on the User Experience at Work

Advertising is an unavoidable part of the web browsing experience. When done well, tailored ads show compelling products and services that align with your preferences and interests. Unfortunately, the more common experience is a website with dozens of ads with intentionally provocative images that crowd out the content you’re trying to read. Worse, the systems that serve these ads compete for resources from your browser and upstream network infrastructure, so pages load slower and battery life is reduced. And behind all those targeted ads are embedded trackers that follow you everywhere online to learn about your interests and behaviors — at the cost of online privacy and security.

The large majority of online ads are targeted at the consumer. Most enterprise applications are (thankfully) free of advertising, as their revenue comes directly from paid subscriptions. But now that those enterprise applications are delivered through a browser, the line between work and personal is blurred. The same browser used for Salesforce or ServiceNow is used for reading the news or online shopping. The ad networks are paid based on views, so they are more than happy to deliver ads into the workplace via the browser. The question is, do employees want to see those ads at work? And do the organizations they work for want to participate in serving those ads to their staff?

To answer these questions, let’s consider the downsides of online advertising within the workplace, and why organizations may choose to implement ad blocking technology.

Performance and Productivity

The most immediate cost of unfettered advertising in the workplace is personal productivity. Ads are highly optimized to grab your attention — breaking the focus necessary for tasks that require deep concentration. For the same reason that you might disable your Slack notifications when you want uninterrupted focus time, an ad blocker allows you to use the web for research and productivity tasks without inviting distractions onto your screen. Additionally, blocking ads provides a noticeable improvement in page load times, and can even extend the lifespan of your battery on a laptop or mobile device. According to a recent report by AdGuard, somewhere between 7% and 20% of web requests are for ads and trackers. For an individual user, blocking these requests provides a noticeable improvement in browser performance. Multiply that across thousands of employees all sharing the same network infrastructure in the workplace, and the difference is nontrivial. For remote workers connecting over a VPN or mobile workers with limited bandwidth, the performance impact could be significant.

Security and Privacy

A less obvious but critically important consideration is that the same technologies used for ad tracking and delivery are often used for malicious purposes. Malvertising, the practice of embedding malware in advertisements, poses a risk to users who could be tricked into visiting a malicious website or downloading malicious content. Trackers that are typically used for harmless advertising can just as easily be used as part of a sophisticated spear phishing or social engineering campaign. While there are many ways to detect and disarm malware, simply blocking ads eliminates this threat entirely. Along with improved security, blocking ads and ad trackers helps to preserve your privacy online. Advertisers want to know every website you visit and what products and services you search for so they can serve you targeted ads that follow you around the internet. With an ad blocker, you can stop your personal browsing data from being collected and shared, so your personal browsing stays personal.  

Ad Blocking Technologies

Most ad blockers are deployed via browser extensions. Advertising is the predominant revenue stream for the common consumer-oriented browsers, so there’s no incentive for those browser vendors to build these features natively. Relying on extensions comes with two clear downsides: First, many organizations disable, or strictly limit, the installation of browser extensions for work devices. This is a prudent security measure, since the extension ecosystem is an easy target for spyware and malware. While there are many legitimate ad blocker extensions, there are also plenty of examples of malicious extensions masquerading as ad blockers. The second issue is the reliance on the extension frameworks that are controlled by the consumer browser vendors. As one example, Chrome is in the midst of a major change to their extension framework that may reduce the effectiveness of ad blocker extensions. Island solves both of these issues with an ad blocker that’s natively built into the Enterprise Browser. This eliminates the need for adding extensions, and is fully independent of the evolving browser extensions framework.

User Control with Enterprise Administration  

As outlined above, most online advertising is at best irrelevant and at worst a distraction to getting work done. But it’s essential to accommodate for exceptions and edge cases: Some jobs require viewing web content with all the advertising present. Some websites may not load properly if ad blocking is enabled. If the goal is maximum productivity, it’s essential that the user can control the ad blocker themselves. Island achieves this by showing an indicator in the browser menu bar with the option to disable ad blocking on that page. This is paired with backend administrative controls for IT and security teams to configure exceptions for certain domains so it doesn’t interfere with business workflows. For example, a media organization can disable the ad blocker for their web properties.

The Ideal Enterprise Workspace

Incorporating an ad blocker into Island, the Enterprise Browser, is not just a matter of convenience; it helps to benefit productivity, fortify security, and safeguard personal privacy. With Island, organizations can offer an ideal digital workspace that’s optimized for their particular business and workflows. As more and more applications are delivered through the browser, the benefits of using the Enterprise Browser compound. With native ad and tracker blocking, Island users enjoy fewer distractions, faster page loads, and a more productive workspace.