StopAd

Still have to use other blockers, because it's awful to have it disabled when using VPN and going to those kinds of sites

Inconsistant UI's across platforms and the monthly pricing is a insane.

Despite StopAd's persistent protestations when I connected with them through their live chat, this app breaks a significant number of your apps, sites, etc. Even basic functions like logging in were broken for many sites, on both Safari and Chrome. StopAd annoyingly insisted each time I reached out to them that it was not their application, although every single time, the issue was immediately resolved after disabling StopAd.

The final straw, however, was when I realized it broke my VPNs. When I connected to either Nord or VPN Unlimited, I could no longer reach any sites. I reached out to StopAd to request information on how to properly uninstall to isolate the issue and see if StopAd was the culprit. Even though I was hit with the refrain of "It's not StopAd," I insisted on getting the removal instructions.

Lo and behold, the second I uninstalled StopAd, *poof* everything worked again. The VPNs were operational again.. Note: if you used the browser extensions, it seemed to pipe things through without issue, but if you used the system wide VPN, I wasn't able to visit any sites so it is related to the way StopAd intercepts/proxies the connection to work its "magic."

Most importantly, though, although it did work with applications beyond just the browsers, it was no more effective than extensions like uBlock - which has the added benefit of not having any idle CPU usage. I simply don't understand what the value add is. With the monthly fee, you're far better off getting a VPN subscription that has its own ad/tracker blocker like Nord. Combined with uBlock, you're more secure and have system wide blocking.

The persistent issues, deflection by support, cpu footprint and seeming incompatibility with VPN make this one to avoid, especially with the existing alternatives that already exist.