This week, a look at Epic’s Bluetooth earbud headphones, finding Wi-Fi when you’re away from home, and contemplating ad-blocking apps on mobile devices.

Epic’s earbuds good for listening while moving, but not great for talking

I’ve actually got a few different sets of headphones and earbuds that I use for different situations. Gaming is different from listening to music. Which is different from traveling. Which is different from commuting on a bike.

I have yet to find the best earbuds to wear when riding my bike around town. They need to be earbuds and they need to be sweat and water resistant. Other than that, I’m flexible.

I’ve been wearing the JLab Epic Bluetooth earbuds (US$100) for a couple of weeks, and they’re pretty good. They come with a range of silicon tips for ear canals of different sizes, and the loops that fit around the back of my ear keep them in place when I’m on the move. They are made with memory wire, so the loops can be shaped to fit your own ears.

They have a battery life of some 10 hours, and the quality of sound output is pretty good.

But they aren’t staying in my collection, though. The Bluetooth connection drops out when my phone is in my pockets, and the microphone, which is on the cord that goes behind my head, isn’t sensitive enough, so I have to yell.

I like the idea of Bluetooth headphones for working out, because a cable to a device can be dangerous. But I’m sticking with my wired sport headphones for the time being.

How to find Wi-Fi when you’re out and about

Instabridge is an app for Android and iOS that makes it easy to find Wi-Fi out in the world. And it will help you get access to those hubs that may be locked down because members of the community can choose to share login details with other members of the Instabridge community.

The app started off as a way of giving your friends access to your home Wi-Fi through Facebook when they visited. But it’s become a go-to resource for Wi-Fi hotspots.

The app lists freely available Wi-Fi like what you can find at coffee shops and libraries. But it also gives users access to any Wi-Fi network for which the password has been shared. That could include companies or organizations that are okay sharing their Wi-Fi network with Instabridge users.

We all prefer to use our mobile devices while connected to Wi-Fi, of course, because mobile networks can be slow and expensive.

On that note…

Ad blockers make a difference on mobile

Software that blocks advertisements from showing up on web pages have been used on computers for years. Now they’re available for mobile devices, too.

Crystal is one such app designed for iOS. Using Crystal can reduce the drain on your battery, it can reduce the amount of mobile data you use, it will speed up your mobile browsing, and it prevents websites from tracking you and collecting your information.

I’m not going to debate the philosophical merits of ad blocking, here. Instead, I’ll just cite some user statistics that suggest why ad blocking on mobile has become important.

The data comes from a blog post by Crystal developer Dean Murphy. who was writing about why he created the software. He got more than 800 responses to an informal survey in which he asked users why they were using his software.

The biggest reason people want to block ads, it seems, is because they make sites difficult to read and navigate. Murphy also found that people are not against the idea of advertising, but they have a low tolerance for crappy ads.

Which is why there’s an initiative called Acceptable Ads, promoted by AdBlcokPlus, which aims to list some of the ways that advertising can be presented so as not to complete destroy the user experience.

The honest truth is that if we didn’t have websites autoplaying full screen video ads, we probably wouldn’t need ad blockers.