Just short of two weeks since ad blockers skyrocketed to the top of the iPhone app chart, only one remains in the top five while a former number one has slipped to below 20th place.
Within hours after iOS 9 came out on September 16, three ad blockers made it into the top 10 most popular paid apps with four in the top 12, for the US market. The Peace ad blocker even took the number one spot:
Peace dropped from the charts about two days later, when its creator Marco Arment killed the app over concern that it didn’t allow for control to allow “well-behaved” ads through. The Crystal ad blocker quickly took over the number one spot, with Purify Blocker moving to fourth and Blockr at 20th.
Crystal held its number one spot through at least last Thursday, when I did a check. Purify slipped a bit to fifth. On Monday (and through today), when I checked again, Crystal had plummeted to 21. Blockr wasn’t in the top 150, that I could spot:
Purify did move up to number three, but this still means that it’s the first time since iOS 9 came out that no ad blocker is in the number one spot.
Last week, Crystal announced that it would add support to allow ads on the Eyeo whitelist to be shown. Eyeo is the company that makes the popular AdBlock Plus blocker for desktop browsers. That support is not yet in place, but perhaps the perception that Crystal is an ad blocker that still allows ads has harmed its popularity. Two of the top reviews for Crystal have concerns about this:
It could also be that some users prefer that Purify allows for whitelisting sites they choose, something not possible with Crystal. Blockr, however, allows even more customization than Purify yet is buried in the charts.
Back to Crystal, according to App Annie — which tracks app store rankings — the situation is even worse. While I see it at 21 in the top charts for iPhone paid apps, App Annie reports it 47th, with the drop from number one beginning last Thursday:
Purify is reported as climbing higher at the same time, reaching number two for a day before coming back to number three:
Blockr is reported at 432.
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