Ad-blocking to grow 34% this year to nearly 70 million U.S. web users

Publishers would love internet users to decide that, actually, they don't need to install an ad-blocker on their browser of choice. But a new report from research firm eMarketer suggested on Tuesday that there's no such hope on the horizon.

U.S. internet users running ad blockers will grow this year to 69.8 million, or 26.3% of web users in the U.S., from 51.9 million, or 20%, last year, eMarketer said. In 2017, ad-blocking web surfers in the U.S. will total 86.6 million, or 32%.

Desktop and laptop computers are still far more popular for ad-blocking than smartphones, the report found. In 2016, 23.8% of U.S. internet users will have a blocker installed on a desktop or laptop, while only 7.8% of these users will have one installed on a smartphone.

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