I've never gotten the ads to work on the web version, but I read a comment saying it did work for someone so who knows. Otherwise, you could just download the phone app... it's not that hard. And Tapas gives out free coins sometimes too. Just today, everyone who subscribed to Fools before Dec 18 got 300 coins.
You can just find any old phone that can download apps. That's what I use. All your friend needs to do is download the app and login with your account info (email and password).
Also, turning off adblock on Tapas apparently helps the authors, not sure if it applies to premium comic authors as well though.