Days after Samsung-supported ad blocker Adblock Fast premiered on the Play Store, Google kicked the Android plugin out.
It wasn't too long ago when Samsung packed in support for ad-blocking extensions to its own browser preloaded on its Android phones. Content-blocking plugin Adblock Fast, an open source and absolutely free solution, speedily became available on Google Play, but Google has decided to wipe it out from the Play Store.
Based on a VentureBeat report, the plugin which showed up on Google Play on Jan. 29 was taken out between 8 a.m. PST, Tuesday and 8 a.m. PST, Wednesday.
Rocketship Apps, the developer of Adblock Fast, blamed Google for pulling out its plugin from the Play Store.
After hitting the No. 1 spot on Google Play for new and free productivity apps, the developer claims that its plugin was immediately removed by Google due to "interfering" with third-party apps, with the company citing its Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement.
"I reviewed Adblock Fast, com.rocketshipapps.adblockfast, and found that it violates section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement," says a part of Google's email to Rocketship Apps.
App developer Brian Kennish of Rocketship Apps says the company has not yet been able to get an official response from a human in Google. Rather, it has only received autoresponders.
"The only app Adblock Fast interacted with in any way was the Samsung Internet browser and only using Samsung's API (that we helped them define)," he said.
He went on to say that he is wondering how many engineers from Google would call "using an API, 'interfering.'"
Meanwhile, two other ad-blocking extensions were uploaded on the Play Store,Crystal and Adblock Plus. At this time, these two solutions are still available on Google Play.
Since the roll-out of Apple's iOS 9, ad-blocking on mobile phones has continued to gain traction mainly because the mobile OS has provided support for content blockers. Lately, Samsung has followed its archrival's footsteps.
Among the key reasons ad blockers became increasingly popular is that they tout to offer quicker load times, cleaner browsing experience and lowered data usage.
