AppHarbr helps block malicious ads for mobile games

FunCorp had an ad quality problem, so it turned to AppHarbr for a solution. FunCorp is a mobile entertainment company known for viral social content apps like iFunny, where memes and humor connect millions of young users across the U.S.

FunCorp had long and unskippable interstitial ads that were disrupting the user experience, negatively impacting revenue and operational workload.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based AppHarbr is a mobile-first solution for stopping malicious in-app ads to improve the in-app/in-game experience, blocks ads by duration, brand, behavior or interactivity. It auto-detected deceptive ads, enabling FunCorp to manage the situation.

The result was a 30% reduction in manual Quality Assurance (QA) workload. It also saw a 6% lift in app retention tied directly to removing the long interstitials, and there were 25% fewer support tickets related to bad ad experiences. This is the kind of result that every app or game developer monetizing their app with ads could appreciate.

“App and game developers are challenged as they work to balance monetization with user experience,” said Amnon Siev, CEO, AppHarbr, in a statement. “That’s why our ability to increase FunCorp’s retention by 6% after removing broken interstitials highlights the importance working with ad quality management technology.”

AppHarbr supports app developers and game studios to ensure that they can provide their users and advertisers with a malware-free experience. Founded by ad quality solution provider GeoEdge, AppHarbr’s team has spent a decade building a mobile-first solution for stopping malicious ads from impacting the in-app and in-game experience.

The company has more than 15 people and it was founded in 2021. It was based on GeoEdge’s tech, which has been stopping malware online for over a decade.

A mobile-first solution developed by GeoEdge, AppHarbr is the only real-time ad quality solution with real-time blocking – a proactive solution unlike all the other reactive solutions. Appharbr covers malvertising (ad security), ad content, and ad quality (technical violations).

It has behavioral controls designed to eliminate the No. 1 pain point for gaming publishers—unskippable or excessively long full-screen ads—and automatically mute or block ads that play sound without consent.

And it focuses on ad quality. Unlike mediation tools where ad-quality is just one feature, it has just one mission. It’s fully platform-agnostic and free of any conflicts of interest.

AppHarbr said it is more robust and feature-rich than Mediations with Ad Quality Tools like AppLovin Max or Unity Level Play.

Adept and experienced in the detection of malware and malicious and sexually-oriented ads, AppHarbr continuously monitors ads at the pre-impression level in real-time, detecting and preventing any malicious activity.

The company’s technology guards mobile and video ad campaigns, including mobile banner ads, interstitials, native ads, and rewarded videos, from any kind of malicious activity, such as auto-redirects, phishing and drive-by-downloads, to malware inserted in the pre-click or post-click.

Specifically, AppHarbr’s technology is a real-time blocking solution that guards the in-app user experience with customizable controls to manage ad quality. It prevents malicious, offensive, and low-quality ads from impacting visitors, thereby improving app/game ROI. It Ensures a clean ad experience by controlling ads that have skippability issues, autoplay sound, are off-brand, offensive or inappropriate. And it minimizes time spent by Ad Operations handling ad security threats.

The company said it keeps users safe by eliminating security threats at their source and proactively blocking malvertising, enforcing privacy protections, and ensuring data compliance

FunCorp has more than 50 million installs and eight million monthly active users. The average session time for its games is 18 minutes to 22 minutes.

“Beyond revenue, improved ad quality also provides operational efficiencies by reducing the time and resources app and game developers spend on Quality Assurance (QA) and addressing support tickets,” said Siev.

The company’s clients include game and app developers including Voodoo, Hypercell, Sunday, Appodeal, and Softowel Games.