Total Adblock Review: What It Blocks, What the Free Tier Hides, and the $99 Renewal

Ad blockers used to be a free hobbyist category. Then Chrome's extension changes in 2024 and 2025 broke or weakened several of the classic blockers, YouTube started an open war on anything that skips its ads, and a paid product with a support desk suddenly had a reason to exist. Total Adblock is that product, from Total Security Ltd, the company behind TotalAV. This review looks at what it blocks, what the free tier is really for, and the price you will pay once the introductory year is over.

What Total Adblock does

Total Adblock is a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Safari and Opera on desktop, plus dedicated apps for Android and iOS. On a page it removes banner, pop-up and video ads, stops autoplay videos and flashing banners, blocks third-party cookies and the hidden trackers and scripts that follow you between sites, and filters known phishing and malicious links. It also claims in-play YouTube ad blocking, with the honest caveat on its own site that YouTube and Facebook blocking "may be limited" depending on whether you use the browser or the app.

Firefox is not supported, which rules it out for a meaningful number of privacy-conscious users.

In use it is unremarkable in the good sense: pages load faster, the counter in the toolbar ticks up, and the allow-list is one click when a site asks you to disable blocking. Reviewers who test YouTube specifically report that it blocks pre-roll and mid-roll ads reliably and occasionally misses ads in Shorts. That matches what we saw.

Free vs Plus

The extension installs with a free tier and a 7-day trial of the premium features. After the trial, the free version keeps blocking on most of the web but stops blocking on the top 15,000 sites, which in practice means YouTube, the big social networks and major news sites keep their ads. The company's own page simply says "subscription required for full access". Treat the free tier as a demo, not as a free ad blocker.

Total Adblock Plus unlocks everything: full blocking on all sites, YouTube, tracker and cookie blocking, custom preferences and support.

Price and the renewal catch

This is the part to read twice. At the time of writing the US site offers Total Adblock Plus at $19 for the first year, with a regular rate of $99 a year from the second year. Monthly, quarterly and biannual plans exist and also auto-renew. Introductory pricing is for first-time customers only.

Refunds: 30 days on annual and biannual plans, 14 days on monthly, quarterly and add-on services. You must fully terminate the subscription in your account; turning off auto-renew alone does not trigger a refund.

If you also buy TotalAV, note that Total Adblock is included in the antivirus plans, but a standalone Adblock subscription is billed and cancelled separately. People who end up paying twice almost always bought both under the same email and assumed they were one product.

Get Total Adblock Plus for $19 in year one

Is a paid ad blocker worth it?

For a beginner there are three honest answers.

• If you only want fewer ads on ordinary sites, a free, open-source blocker such as uBlock Origin Lite does the job and costs nothing, though it offers no support and its YouTube behaviour changes with every YouTube update.
• If YouTube ads are the problem, nothing is stable for long, paid or free. Total Adblock currently works and has a team whose job is to keep it working, which is what the $19 buys.
• If you are setting up a parent's or child's browser, a blocker that filters phishing links and installs in one click, with a help desk, is worth more than the technically superior free option they will never configure. Read browser security 101 first and install only one blocker.

Whichever you pick, check the extension's permissions and reviews before you trust it; our guide to spotting fake browser extensions explains why.

Who should buy it

• Buy if you want a supported, set-and-forget blocker on Chrome, Edge or Safari, YouTube included, and you will set a reminder before the $99 renewal.
• Skip if you use Firefox, if you are comfortable with a free open-source blocker, or if you will not manage the subscription.

Verdict

Total Adblock is a solid, easy ad blocker with a support desk and current YouTube coverage. It earns its $19 first year. The $99 renewal is hard to justify against free alternatives, so take the introductory price, turn off auto-renew in the dashboard, and decide again at month eleven.

Try Total Adblock Plus