iOS 9 Content Blockers Mini-Reviews

[xMattPerkins]

The best overall ad blocker for Safari right now is Adguard with "Use Simplified Filters" turned on. It blocks the most ads with the least issues. Now if you want the one that is most customizable then 1Blocker is the best choice. The best set it and forget it option is Adamant. The developer of Crystal is now accepting money from ad companies so their ads won't be filtered by Crystal. Now if you want one that blocks ads in apps too then you want Adblock by FutureMind. It is the only in app ad blocker on the AppStore that works on both WiFi and on cellular. The downside to Adblock is it uses VPN and it will not work with another VPN. It will for instance turn off F-Secure Freedome. My overall recommendation right now is go with Adguard, it's not only the one that causes the least issues, it's also ironically the only one mentioned that's actually free and with no iAPs.

 

[avatar-adg]

As for empty boxes, I turned simplified filters off and still see some empty large boxes...

Could you please tell me on which websites exactly do you see these?

 

[Orka]

Could you please tell me on which websites exactly do you see these?

I saw them on newsru.com on right, but now i tried once more and don't see them anymore. So, I was wrong, my bad..

 

[avatar-adg]

I saw them on newsru.com on right, but now i tried once more and don't see them anymore. So, I was wrong, my bad..

I suppose Safari has not yet reloaded Adguard's content blocker by the time you've seen these placeholders. It happens sometimes.

 

[Bonfyre]

None of the content blockers work with a 5, Apple fix it.

 

[C DM]

None of the content blockers work with a 5, Apple fix it.

Content blocking that was introduced in iOS 9 isn't available on 32-bit devices.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Could you please tell me on which websites exactly do you see these?

Have used Adguard for a few weeks now. Seemed good, but my battery life on my iPad Air 2 suffered, I think. So I'm now using Magic. So far, better battery life. Still have Adguard, and may try it again if power consumption can be improved.

 

[leesweet]

Has Magic been touched in the last month? I went to Adguard when Magic seemed to be another 'died on the vine'. Last I looked, no software or blocklist updates since, what, January?

 

[macaximx]

Has Magic been touched in the last month? I went to Adguard when Magic seemed to be another 'died on the vine'. Last I looked, no software or blocklist updates since, what, January?

Mine says version 36 updated 2/25/16

 

[Narcaz]

At least the Blocklist got a more or less recent update, but i might have to look again into other content blockers like Adguard, Wipr or whatever. So far I had bad luck with those blockers (Peace, Crystal, Purify, now Magic). They seem to have a short life until some problems appear and the long term support falls apart. Magic has currently some sort of legal trouble according to their twitter account:

"1/2 People asking why Magic removed from App Store.We got "sued" by Eyeo (AdBlock Plus) for ridiculous reasons. We'll back soon!"

 

[macaximx]

Cross AdBlock Plus off my list because of that.

Purify has still not fixed a site (comments will not show) I've identified a number of times. I will keep using Magic until it stops blocking.

 

[leesweet]

At least the Blocklist got a more or less recent update, but i might have to look again into other content blockers like Adguard, Wipr or whatever. So far I had bad luck with those blockers (Peace, Crystal, Purify, now Magic). They seem to have a short life until some problems appear and the long term support falls apart. Magic has currently some sort of legal trouble according to their twitter account:

Good grief. What other product have we had to 'get a new one' every x weeks?

 

[daleski75]

I have used adguard for a while on both my pc and my android tablet and it works very well on my 6S Plus although I have brought Adblock which uses the VPN to block content across the whole device but this currently does not work 100% with iOS 9.3 Beta 5 so may switch to that if it works 100% once iOS 9.3 is officially released.

 

[miknos]

For Mac, AdGuard used to be my AdBlocker of choice. You can add all the best lists (EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Fanboy, etc). If you encounter an ad in some website, you could block it easily by doing a secondary click and sliding a bar. Very effective and intuitively.

Then I tried uBlock and realized how lightweight it is. Heavy pages stuttered less and memory footprint was lower. To add a rule, I switch back to AdGuard so I can add and copy the new rule set.

CPU/Memory consumption is very important for me since it can increase battery life from my laptop and specially, my iPhone.

That's why I think BrooksReview is correct in his comparison and think Purify (same dev as uBlock) might be the best.

Would like to see a thoughtful comparison of Purify/AdGuard/Focus. Data/speed and cpu (the only way I notice is when my iPhone gets warmer).

 

[gaanee]

How do you check the memory footprint of the extension?

For Mac, AdGuard used to be my AdBlocker of choice. You can add all the best lists (EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Fanboy, etc). If you encounter an ad in some website, you could block it easily by doing a secondary click and sliding a bar. Very effective and intuitively.

Then I tried uBlock and realized how lightweight it is. Heavy pages stuttered less and memory footprint was lower. To add a rule, I switch back to AdGuard so I can add and copy the new rule set.

CPU/Memory consumption is very important for me since it can increase battery life from my laptop and specially, my iPhone.

That's why I think BrooksReview is correct in his comparison and think Purify (same dev as uBlock) might be the best.

Would like to see a thoughtful comparison of Purify/AdGuard/Focus. Data/speed and cpu (the only way I notice is when my iPhone gets warmer).

 

[miknos]

^^

Activity monitor.

Very noticeable when you open heavy websites like Wired, iMore… uBlock is the only one I can use in agar.io. Can't play using AdGuard. Much less ABP. That's on my quite old Macbook (early 2008).

Newer laptops might handle without problems but I have more respect for optimized code.

Im assuming uBlock developer wrote better code than the competition. BrooksReview did a comparison confirming Purify performed better.

Right now I'm using Mozilla Focus and It looks quite good.

 

[bluefiberoptics]

^^
Im assuming uBlock developer wrote better code than the competition. BrooksReview did a comparison confirming Purify performed better.

The person that originally wrote uBlock made a mistake when he let another developer take it over. The guy that took it over basically put a donate sign and tried to make it seem he was responsible for all of the development.

The original developer now continues development as "uBlock origin"

The guy that took the name "uBlock" is milking it and hasn't updated the Safari version in a while. I'd say it's discontinued.

 

[sm00thArsenal]

The person that originally wrote uBlock made a mistake when he let another developer take it over. The guy that took it over basically put a donate sign and tried to make it seem he was responsible for all of the development.

The original developer now continues development as "uBlock origin"

The guy that took the name "uBlock" is milking it and hasn't updated the Safari version in a while. I'd say it's discontinued.

A somewhat one sided take on it. The Purify guy that was given the uBlock Chrome/Firefox project to continue was already developing and maintaining the Safari version and the donations were to pay for hosting of that version (as unlike the Chrome/Firefox versions the Safari one had to be hosted by the dev).

 

[yanki01]

installed 9.3 last night and noticed ad's on some pages i visited which weren't there before. went into "Adguard" and enabled "Mobile ads filter". idk if 9.3 removed the ad blocking on safari but it still showed that Adguard was on. weird.

 

[miknos]

installed 9.3 last night and noticed ad's on some pages i visited which weren't there before. went into "Adguard" and enabled "Mobile ads filter". idk if 9.3 removed the ad blocking on safari but it still showed that Adguard was on. weird.

For some reason you have to enable Content Block again.

 

[Hippocrates]

A somewhat one sided take on it. The Purify guy that was given the uBlock Chrome/Firefox project to continue was already developing and maintaining the Safari version and the donations were to pay for hosting of that version (as unlike the Chrome/Firefox versions the Safari one had to be hosted by the dev).

I don't think that's a one sided take. The Github page of uBlock shows that it has not been updated since August last year. Moreover, most of the contributions was done by gorhill (the original creator of uBlock and the current uBlock Origin manager). The purify guy (Chris) contributed relatively little: https://github.com/chrisaljoudi/uBlock/graphs/contributors

If you are convinced that uBlock is so perfect that it doesn't need update anymore, look over to uBlock origin Github: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/graphs/contributors... that's how "actively maintaining the project" should look like. Unfortunately, gorhill is not interested in porting uBlock origin to Safari.

uBlock for Safari actually worked fine for me. But after having bad experience with Purify and learning more about the conflicts between uBlock and uBlock origin, I decided that I will not support Chris' products anymore. So I bought Adguard desktop and never looked back.

 

[GIZBUG]

Purify works fine for me. Bought day one, have seen no reason to try anything else, as Purify just "does the job"

 

[hank moody]

FOCUS by FIREFOX still the best

 

[C DM]

FOCUS by FIREFOX still the best

You mean it's simply what you are using and happen to like at the moment, since we've seen that change at least a few times just in the course of this thread (if I recall correctly).

 

[exi]

FOCUS by FIREFOX still the best

If you're going to post a comment like that (again), back it up with something more than your opinion.