Can MacOS remove all the ads we are forced to see when browsing the internet?

[klasma]

I recommend Ghostery as an ad blocker. It also automatically dismisses cookie popups in many cases. On Windows (or any non-Safari platform), for those who want to avoid Chromium, Firefox is the browser of choice, again with Ghostery.

 

[darngooddesign]

How effective is 1Blocker in practice? For example, how many percent of ads can it remove?

Windows PC is my only machine these days. Those ads are driving me crazy. If the Mac + 3rd party app can eliminate all or the majority of Ads, I may buy a Mac.

Haven't you looked at ad-blocking browser extensions for your computer yet?

 

[AlixSPQR]

for those who want to avoid Chromium, Firefox is the browser of choice,

Yes, but then you're not avoiding Google! They pay Mozilla ”more than $450 million”. Just sayin'! 🤞🏻

Why Has Google Spent a Half-Billion Dollars on Firefox?

No, really, why?

www.bloomberg.com

 

[klasma]

Yes, but then you're not avoiding Google! They pay Mozilla ”more than $450 million”. Just sayin'! 🤞🏻

What do you mean? You contribute to Google losing money!

And the DDG browser on Windows uses the native WebView2, which is Blink, the same as Chromium, which only enforces Google’s stranglehold on the web. So better use a different browser engine. Where Safari isn’t available, Firefox (Gecko/Quantum) is virtually the only option.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

If ads were not done in such an intrusive way I may not mind them so much. It's not the ad itself that's the problem but how they are implemented. A lot of times it's akin to a close talker being an inch from your face and yelling at you. The ads are so intrusive to the point it should possibly be illegal. Plus as others have noted many ads use trackers which I also don't like. YouTube videos were some of the worst for me. Ads cannot be skipped right away and often come up randomly throughout a video. If it was only a 5-10 second ad before the video started I could accept that. But also things like banner ads and pop ups on many websites trying to promote things drives me crazy. The whole concept of internet ads needs to be redone so it does not intrude on the browsing experience.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

There are lots of adblockers that can block all browser ads on either Windows or Mac.

I switched from Windows to a Mac a year ago largely because I was tired of Microsoft pushing ads at me within their products, for products that I had already purchased and had installed on that same computer.

That doesn't happen on my Mac, even when I use a Microsoft product.

FWIW: Yesterday, I read on another forum that Microsoft's new AI products won't work if you have an adblocker installed. I don't know if that's true. If it is, it might give you additional incentive to switch to a Mac.

That would be another reason not to switch to a Windows PC. I wonder if Android is the same?

 

[Catasstrophy]

AdGuard DNS is free and all you have to do is make dns.adguard.com your dns.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I recommend Ghostery as an ad blocker. It also automatically dismisses cookie popups in many cases. On Windows (or any non-Safari platform), for those who want to avoid Chromium, Firefox is the browser of choice, again with Ghostery.

I use AdGuard which I paid for and it works well. But Ghostery looks interesting. Maybe I will check them out. Thanks.

 

[Alpha God Vonn]

It’s not that serious

 

[virgin71]

Yes, but then you're not avoiding Google! They pay Mozilla ”more than $450 million”. Just sayin'! 🤞🏻

Why Has Google Spent a Half-Billion Dollars on Firefox?

No, really, why?

www.bloomberg.com

It means, that Google is paying Mozilla for google search engine to be first choice. Nothing more. So you avoid google. You have to change search engine. That’s all.

 

[icanhazmac]

Raspberry Pi + PiHole = Ad Free Bliss

 

[boswald]

I use NextDNS and AdGuard. No complaints!

 

[ErikGrim]

AdGuard + StopTheMadness for me.

 

[MacBH928]

No. Consider a third party app like 1Blocker.

actually yes, if you change your MacOS DNS to the free Adguard or ControlD it will block at least 90% of the ads. You can do it on your router too to affect all your device connecting to the router.

it can't block youtube ads though.

 

[hajime]

Do blocked ads show up as blocks of empty boxes?

 

[gilby101]

Do blocked ads show up as blocks of empty boxes?

Just white space or (if across the page) removed so you don't even know they might be there. Certainly no boxes.

With AdGuard for Mac, I am almost oblivious to the fact that the web page might like to show me ads. I have almost forgotten what they look like!

Don't forget that a decent ad blocker is also blocking tracking and malware.

I use: Adguard for Mac (http/s blocking across web views in all apps), plus AdGuard Home (DNS blocking).

 

[hajime]

Is the Mac+3rd party apps better at blocking ads than Windows PC + 3rd party apps?

 

[hajime]

You could setup AdGuard DNS on your computer or your router. Or you could you use another browser like Brave Browser which is pretty good at siphoning away the ads.

Do I need to mess with the settings on the router? My ISP told me not to mess with the router settings.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Is the Mac+3rd party apps better at blocking ads than Windows PC + 3rd party apps?

Many of the listed options are available on Windows, which have you tried?

Do I need to mess with the settings on the router? My ISP told me not to mess with the router settings.

Yes

 

[realpaoz]

If you hate ads that much, quit browsing the Internet. This is the best solution to the problem.

 

[JustAnExpat]

What I did is I replaced the Default HOSTS file with one that's designed to block ads.

See

https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

for an example of a good HOSTS file. Read

https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/edit-mac-hosts-file/

For information on how to edit the HOSTS file

 

[Argon_]

For the last two posters, I searched for "yt-dip" and "uBlock Origin" on the App Store, nothing. Do you have links? Much appreciated!
I had been using Wipr successfully for a few years, but EweTube has now gotten around it. Every third or fourth video is now an ad, and it drives me so crazy that I've dropped half my "content creators" (the other half have separate websites for "merch" etc, and usually (not always) when I click on their videos hosted on YT, the ads are bypassed. I've also added a couple more Patreon accounts to Content Creators for channels that are really valuable to me, but paying YT $135/annum after they've been selling my data all these years, making them one of the most wealthy "hosting sites" in history.... that's a Big Nope.
Will be following this one, TIA.

uBO isn't an app. It is a browser extension.

 

[bogdanw]

19 pages of the same discussion
"Best Mac Adblocker for PRIVACY and data protection? [MERGED]"
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...r-privacy-and-data-protection-merged.2378717/

 

[WilliApple]

Not in vanilla macOS, you can download an ad blocker for any browser these days.

I would be mad if macOS blocked ads by default, because that is one of my good sources of income.

(Also please turn it off for YouTube, I speak for all the YouTubers when we say that we don't like ad block because it ruins our revenue)

 

[gilby101]

because that is one of my good sources of income.

Don't you mean bad source of income? I see the ad-driven world as intrinsically bad. That is why I block all ads that I can.