Shift’s built-in Blocker helps you stay focused by keeping your browsing experience clean and ad-free. With Blocker enabled, distracting ads, pop-ups, cookies, and trackers are automatically removed — so you can focus on what really matters.
Turning Blocker on or off
Depending on which version of Shift you downloaded, Blocker may already be turned on by default. You can easily enable or disable it from your settings:
- Click the gear icon
to open Quick Settings.
- Select Advanced Settings.
- Click Add-ons from the sidebar.
- Toggle the switch beside Blocker:
- Blue = ON
- Grey = OFF
That’s it — your preference will save automatically.
Understanding the Blocker icon
When Blocker is turned on, you’ll see the Blocker icon appear in your omnibox (search bar).
- If Blocker removes ads or trackers on a page, a numeric badge will appear on the icon showing how many items were blocked.
- If there’s nothing to block, no badge will be shown.
- On internal Shift pages (like Advanced Settings), the icon won’t appear at all.
This badge updates automatically as you switch between pages and tabs.
Blocker panel overview
Clicking the Blocker icon opens the Blocker panel, where you can view stats and adjust settings on the fly — without fully disabling the add-on.
Visual indicators:
- Green border → Premium Blocker is ON (with subscription),
- Yellow border → Blocker is ON,
- Red border → Blocker is OFF.
Inside the panel, you’ll also see options to:
- Turn blocking on or off for a specific website or page,
- View basic statistics about what’s being blocked.
What Blocker Removes
Here’s what Blocker filters out by default:
- Ads — text, image, and video ads
- Cookies
- Tracking scripts
- Push notifications
- Cookie banners
You can also control whether to allow Acceptable Ads — non-intrusive ads that meet certain standards.
Acceptable Ads
Shift’s Blocker now gives you even more control over how ads and tracking behave in your browser. With Acceptable Ads, you can keep seeing light, respectful ads that support creators — while blocking the unnecessary tracking that usually comes with them.
When this option is on, you’ll still see ads that meet the Acceptable Ads standard, but third-party trackers that aren’t essential for ad delivery or compliance are blocked automatically. In short: ads stay, invasive tracking goes.
Behind the scenes, this setting uses specialized filter lists to identify and block tracking elements within approved ads. If another rule or filter conflicts with this behavior, Shift defers to the stricter privacy rule — your privacy always comes first.
Some minimal tracking may still occur for legitimate reasons like ad attribution or partner compliance (for example, with Startpage.com, Shiftnews.com, and ShiftNTP.com). We keep that tracking to an absolute minimum, and we’ll always be transparent about when and why it happens.
Understanding Blocker Statistics
The Blocker panel also gives you insight into how much digital clutter it’s removing.
At a glance:
- Items blocked on this page: Matches the badge number on your Blocker icon and represents how many items (ads, trackers, cookies, etc.) have been blocked on the current page.
- This list will continue to expand as new statistics are added!
A Note on Remaining Ads
While Blocker removes the vast majority of unwanted content, you may still see occasional ads. These can appear due to site-specific limitations, non-standard ad formats, or when Acceptable Ads are enabled.
Encounter a new issue or have a question you can’t find the answer to? Click to access our request form and get in touch with our Support team.
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