Ad blocker usage surged 30% in 2016, according to a new report from PageFair, a company that helps publishers regain revenue lost to the software.

There were 615 million devices blocking ads worldwide by the end of 2016, 62% (308 million) of those mobile. Desktop ad blocker usage grew 17% year-on-year to 236 million.

(PageFair)

The largest geographical driver of mobile ad blocker use has been in the Asia-Pacific, where 94% of mobile ad blocking takes place.

There hasn't yet been mass adoption of a mobile ad blocking app in North America or Europe yet, but PageFair predicts mobile ad blocking would accelerate in those regions if device manufacturers or distributors began to pre-configure ad blocking software as standard.

(PageFair)

Security was the main reason cited for downloading an ad blocker among consumers polled in the US for the report. 30% of those surveyed said virus and malware concerns drove them to download an ad blocker.

The next most-cited reason for getting ad blocker software was "interruption" (29%), according to the report.

Dr Johnny Ryan, PageFair's head of ecosystem, said in the company's previous reports, privacy has been the primary motivation to downloading an ad blocker.

Ryan told Business Insider: "In 2014 we were dealing with early adopter users of ad blocking. These people really care and understand about the real problems of privacy and data leakage in ad tech. I think what happened is the industry's lack of an approach or interest in privacy let the ad block genie out of the bottle."

He continued: "But now [ad blocker usage] has grown to a broader demographic for whom [an ad blocker] is closer to just a remote control. The genie is out of the bottle and if the industry had taken privacy and data protection seriously this might not have happened."

PageFair's previous reports and those of different organizations found there was a significantly higher usage rate of ad blockers among males. While it's still true that more men use ad blockers than women, the report showed that the ad blocking demographics have broadened out beyond solely young techies:

(PageFair)

The failure of ad block walls

The study also looked into how publishers are tacking the growing use of ad blocking software.

PageFair noted that 90% of ad blocker users surveyed have encountered an "ad block wall" that blocked them from viewing content unless they disabled their ad blocker.

However, almost three-quarters (74%) of those users said they simply left those websites rather than performing the steps required to whitelist them.

Ryan told Business Insider he wasn't surprised to see those sorts of figures.