Do the content blockers affect battery in any way?

[Dominick624]

Would using for example, the new ad blocker Crystal, affect battery life on my iPhone 6 in any way?

 

[Mefisto]

I haven't noticed any extra battery drain on my iPhone 6 with Crystal installed, and I think the general consensus is that blockers don't affect battery life in a negative way.

Granted, it's still early days, but so far so good.

 

[iMacDragon]

They should affect it in a noticeable positive way, if browse a lot, due to far less radio use.

 

[Bladery]

Actually, I guess the OP thinks an adblocker affects the battery life in a positive way because there is way less content to load!
And I do think this is true but dunno exactly.

 

[KALLT]

Actually, I guess the OP thinks an adblocker affects the battery life in a positive way because there is way less content to load!
And I do think this is true but dunno exactly.

Of course it’s true. There have been examples of websites that load megabytes(!) worth of data with one visit and continue to load small bits of data asynchronously (requiring unnecessary connections). Safari will not even connect to those external sources anymore so this should have a pretty significant impact. The blocking mechanism will likely have a positive net benefit as most websites have ads. I also think, but am not sure, that blocking will result in a much smaller memory footprint as webpages occupy less memory, meaning that your processor will not have to reload other apps into memory so often.

 

[Yun0]

yes they affect battery, by conserving power

 

[Yptcn]

How does the ad blocker work ? Must the app always stay open ?
Sorry for the dumb question ;-)

 

[Mefisto]

In Crystal's case the app should either stay open in the background (with background refresh enabled), or at least be periodically opened so that the blocklist can be updated. I would imagine it's the same for all of them.

 

[KALLT]

In Crystal's case the app should either stay open in the background (with background refresh enabled), or at least be periodically opened so that the blocklist can be updated. I would imagine it's the same for all of them.

Crystal uses push triggers for background updates. If background app refresh is enabled, you don’t have to do anything unless you force-close the app.

 

[Mefisto]

Yep, that's true and thanks for pointing it out. I'm in the (useless) habit of sometimes killing all apps on the multitask menu so my advice was more pertaining to my personal use case.

 

[Yptcn]

Thank you !

 

[gaanee]

How often is the block list updated? I usually prefer not to keep apps running in background to maximize battery life.

Crystal uses push triggers for background updates. If background app refresh is enabled, you don’t have to do anything unless you force-close the app.

 

[HiRez]

I have the Crystal blocker installed and my battery life on iOS 9 has been extraordinary. 14 hours since charge on 6 Plus and still has 88% remaining. That's not with heavy use, it's mostly standby, but it's even better than what I was previously getting under iOS 8, which was already good on the 6 Plus.

 

[SoYoung]

I have the Crystal blocker installed and my battery life on iOS 9 has been extraordinary. 14 hours since charge on 6 Plus and still has 88% remaining. That's not with heavy use, it's mostly standby, but it's even better than what I was previously getting under iOS 8, which was already good on the 6 Plus.

Same here. I installed and just open the app once and close it after. Background refresh is off. Crystal seems to work fine since then. How offen do you have to open the app?

 

[lagwagon]

Same here. I installed and just open the app once and close it after. Background refresh is off. Crystal seems to work fine since then. How offen do you have to open the app?

Depends how often the dev updates the block list. The list was updated today though. Went from 4 to 5 after opening and checking to see if any were available. I would say check at least once a week, I don't think it really matters too much since a lot of list changes may not even effect sites you visit if the sites you go to already worked well with it.

If you ever come accross any that don't though you can report it from within the app.