Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iOS 9 Content Blockers Mini-Reviews

jack 011

jack 011

macrumors member
Sep 23, 2015
67
17
BasicGreatGuy said:
icon175x175.png


*Taken from the iTunes Preview page.

"Description

Adblock Fast is a free, open-source ad blocker!

Just as webpages grew bloated with ads, so too have ad blockers grown bloated with little-used filtering rules and features that sap their speed and hog your device’s disk space, CPU cycles, and memory. Adblock Fast runs an optimized ruleset to accelerate pages more but consume less system resources than other ad blockers do.

Adblock Fast blocks ads in Safari not in other apps. To allow Adblock Fast to block in Safari:

1. press the Home button on your iPhone or iPad,
2. tap the “Settings” app,
3. tap “Safari” > (under “ General”) “Content Blockers”, then
4. toggle the “Adblock Fast” switch on.

To unblock ads, navigate to the “Adblock Fast” app.

To see the effect of Adblock Fast on a particular page, you may have to clear Safari’s cache (tap “Settings” > “Safari” > “Clear History and Website Data”) before reloading the page.

About us:

10x is an award-winning app studio based in Palo Alto and San Francisco. Our aim is to design the finest mobile and web experiences in the world.

...More
10x Web SiteAdblock Fast Support
Screenshots
iPhone iPad
screen322x572.jpeg

screen322x572.jpeg

screen322x572.jpeg


Adblock Fast app design - A

Even though Adblock Fast is a free content blocker, one can tell that the developers gave some thought to the design and layout of the app. The animation upon opening the app catches the eye. While the app only has one page, the developers have made it easy for the user to turn on and off ad-blocking by simply tapping the main app screen log once, as well as providing a contact help email address for Adblock Fast by pressing the "HELP" text on the app page. Pressing the "HELP" text also explains to the user in a succinct manner, how to enable the app in Safari.

Adblock Fast blocking power - A

Out of the free content blockers reviewed thus far, Adblock Fast has done the best job loading and rendering the test webpages. I can tell that the developers have done a lot more than cut and paste the json file into the app. Take note developers who have created content blockers. If you want to stand out, take heed. Anyone can cut and paste lists. And the results of several of my reviews lately show (in my opinion) that many have done just that. And that is one of the reasons why the same websites have the same problem in so many content blockers.

I liked what I saw.

* Your experience may differ from mine due to several variables.

Adblock Fast's blocking power was tested using the following websites Time Magazine, CNN, Yahoo, Macrumors, Amazon, Fox News, Huffington Post, iMore, The Verge, National Geographic, Crackle, Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Kat.cr, The Pirate... MacWorld, MSNBC, Apple, Ebaums World, ImDB, YouTube, Hotels.com, Digiday, Reddit, Craigslist (local), Cult of Mac, blog.buttermouth, ESPN, Welt.de, Ciudad.com.ar, ABC.com.py, Times of Israel,***** 9to5toys, Straits Times, Str.sg, info.singtel.com, Times of India, Indian Express, and Courier.co.uk.

Unless otherwise noted by the * symbol, all sites loaded correctly without any pop ups or blank advertising boxes.

* Site did not load

** Site loaded correctly but clicking links on main page or subsequent page didn't work.

*** Site loaded correctly but did not block all ad(s) on main page or subsequent site pages.

**** Site did not correctly load all non ad page elements (e.g. pictures, video, text etc.)

***** Site loaded correctly with no ads or pop ups. Empty advertisement blocks were noted.

****** Site loaded correctly but did not stop pop up message or redirects.

Adblock Fast speed - A

I don't know about "the world's fastest," (as the app claims) but Adblock Fast is fast (at least in my experience). In my opinion, it is just as fast as Purify. It stands out in the app crowd.

Adblock price and developer contact - A

The A rating is solely based on the price of the app, (free) as I did not contact the developer and I do not know their customer service history.

Adblock Fast overall rating - A+

If you are looking for a free app that blocks ads, doesn't leave you waiting, and doesn't require tweaking, I recommend Adblock Fast.

In my opinion, the developers of Purify, Crystal, Admop and Silentium better stay on their proverbial code toes. With Adblock Fast available, said developers better give customers strong reasons to buy their app and stick with it.

I wish the app had Whitelisting ability and social widget blocking. Maybe if enough people request it, the fine folks at Rocketshipapps will incorporate the features in the next update.
Click to expand...
This one is fast!
 
  • Like
Reactions: hank moody and Apple_Robert
D

dokindo

macrumors regular
Feb 4, 2009
239
28
Purify was blocking the comments section in news pages on wsj.com. Just tried Adblock fast and it doesn't have the same problem
 
  • Like
Reactions: hank moody
Apple_Robert

Apple_Robert

Contributor
Original poster
Sep 21, 2012
35,664
52,462
In a van down by the river
icon175x175.png


* Taken from the iTunes Preview page.

Description

Free for few days only!

Surf without any Ads on Safari. Just install the app and enable the ad blocking and enjoy using Safari without any Ads. Perfect when you want to cut those distractions out and load webpages faster than ever.

It's absolutely FREE! Download NOW and try it!

If you have any issues with this app please contact us from the app store link. That's the only way we can contact you to solve it. Leaving an issue as a review doesn't help us solve it. We promise to get back to you ASAP.

...More
Ad Blocker - Easily Block Ads Support
Screenshots
iPhone iPad
screen322x572.jpeg

screen322x572.jpeg


Ad Blocker is minimalist content blocker. The single app page claims that "more than 200 ad providers are blocked." There are no extras found in Ad Blocker, nor is there any way to contact the developer within the app. This app appears to only deal with ad-blocking, as no mention of script or tracker blocking is mentioned by the developer.

Ad Blocker app design - D

As you can see by the pictures, very little thought was put into the design and layout of the app. The developer states the app is free for a limited time. With that being the case, I believe an app should offer much more than this, especially when it is going to be a paid app.

Ad Blocker blocking power - F

Given the lack of ad-blocking with the sites noted below, I did not bother finishing the test. I saw it as a waste of my time. This app fails to do what it claims it can do.

* Sponsored ads on Yahoo (on the iPhone 6) were not blocked.
* Social widgets were not blocked.

* Your experience may differ from mine, in regards to ad-blocking ability.

Ad block's blocking power was tested using the following websites Time Magazine, CNN, Yahoo, Macrumors, Amazon,*** Fox News,*** Huffington Post,*** iMore,*** The Verge,*** National Geographic,*** Crackle, Forbes Magazine,*** The Wall Street Journal, Kat.cr, The Pirate... MacWorld, MSNBC, Apple, Ebaums World,*** ImDB, YouTube,*** Hotels.com, Digiday, Reddit, Craigslist (local), Cult of Mac,*** blog.buttermouth, ESPN, Welt.de, Ciudad.com.ar, ABC.com.py,*** Times of Israel, 9to5toys, Straits Times, Str.sg, info.singtel.com, Times of India, Indian Express, Cnet, and Courier.co.uk.

Unless otherwise noted by the * symbol, all sites loaded correctly without any pop ups or blank advertising boxes.

* Site did not load

** Site loaded correctly but clicking links on main page or subsequent page didn't work.

*** Site loaded correctly but did not block all ad(s) on main page or subsequent site pages.

**** Site did not correctly load all non ad page elements (e.g. pictures, video, text etc.)

***** Site loaded correctly with no ads or pop ups. Empty advertisement blocks were noted.

****** Site loaded correctly but did not stop pop up messages or redirects

Ad Blocker speed - C -

Give in the inability of the app to properly block ads, load times were not what they should be, and took slightly longer to load than many other apps reviewed.

Ad Blocker price and developer contact - A

A rating of A was given solely on the basis that the app was free at the time of review. I did not contact the developer prior to review nor am I familiar with his previous customer contact and feedback with other apps.

Ad Blocker overall rating - F

In my opinion, this app fails to do what it was created to do. It doesn't block ads on most (if not all) of the test websites. As such, I do not recommend this app. There are plenty of other apps that do a much better job.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Michaelgtrusa, wchigo, ardchoille50 and 2 others
E

eXoBrute

macrumors regular
Aug 7, 2008
112
3
Anyone else having a problem with Adblock fast not removing the blank white spaces on the front page of macrumors? All the ads are gone for me but after the first article there is a big blank white space.
 
miknos

miknos

Suspended
Mar 14, 2008
940
793
Ben Brooks reviewed a bunch of ad blockers too. Worth a check:

https://brooksreview.net/2015/09/content-blocker-test/

Bottom line:
xJgpenV.png


As you can see, 1Blocker is the winner. It was (on average) 61.83% fasterthan having nothing turned on at all. That’s staggering. The worst of the lot seems to be Vivio, which was marginally faster than simply just turning on ‘Do Not Track’ in your browser settings.

1Blocker is also highly configurable as well. If you want something on the simple end of things, which makes decisions for you to unblock ads from places like The Deck, Adamant is a great option. It was the third fastest overall, and is trying to support the indie sites ad revenue the best it can.
Click to expand...

K59Ksio.png

As you can see, the abandoned Peace app is the most efficient with data, with an average data savings of 38%. Coming in second is my favorite, 1Blocker, with an average data savings of 36%. In third place is the popular Purify app, with an average savings of 35%
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: NoWayBehind and Michaelgtrusa
miknos

miknos

Suspended
Mar 14, 2008
940
793
Rigby said:
I still find this benchmark suspect. How could enabling Do Not Track possibly result in ~25% faster load times? Even if the tested sites honor DNT (which unfortunately few do), it wouldn't normally result in less content being loaded ...
Click to expand...

From Wikipedia:
The Do Not Track header is the proposed HTTP header field DNT that requests that a web application disable either its tracking or cross-site user tracking of an individual user.
Click to expand...

Maybe some big websites honor the DNT?


Interesting note:
On a final note: I have stopped publishing the list of test sites (which has grown to 19 sites) — so as to make sure that no developers can game my test suite. I will continue to vary those sites as the particular sites don’t matter as much as the mix and averages.
Click to expand...
 
R

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,257
10,215
San Jose, CA
miknos said:
Maybe some big websites honor the DNT?
Click to expand...
Maybe, but even then there shouldn't be a significant difference. Sites that honor DNT are basically expected to stop keeping persistent state that can be used to track a user across sites. But it normally doesn't block anything.

But don't get me wrong, I appreciate the work he is obviously putting into this. Better than all the anectdotal "OMG uberblocker 2000 is the fastest blocker evah!!1!!1!!" postings. ;) The same goes for BasicGreatGuy's mini-reviews, of course. :)
 
R

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,257
10,215
San Jose, CA
tosbsas said:
Is it possible that some blockers use more battery than others?
Click to expand...
It's possible, but hard to quantify. Searching the blocklist for matches obviously takes CPU cycles. How many will depend on the size of the list, but a developer can also take steps to optimize it (e.g. by grouping rules with identical actions and sorting them by hit probability, because Safari is able to skip searching the rest of a group after the first match). On the other hand, if the web page has lots of blockable objects, you save CPU cycles for rendering. The overall effect can only be determined by lots of testing.

PS: I just created my own blocker for fun. Took me about 10 minutes, since Xcode 7 even has a template for content blocker extensions. :p Of course it doesn't have a GUI and I stole the block list elsewhere (that's obviously where the real work is).
 
wchigo

wchigo

macrumors 6502
Apr 6, 2015
467
218
dokindo said:
Purify was blocking the comments section in news pages on wsj.com. Just tried Adblock fast and it doesn't have the same problem
Click to expand...
I noticed that Purify was blocking some images and videos on nfl.com as well, which did not happen with numerous other blockers like Safari Blocker, Adblocker or Adblock Fast. So far now I'm using a mixture of Adblocker, Adblock Fast and AdMop's tracking blocker which seems to be doing decent. I might turn one off at some point and/or revisit previous blockers I used like Crystal and Purify at a later date to see if they've made any improvements.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jack 011 and scjr
H

hasanahmad

macrumors 65816
May 20, 2009
1,429
1,573
BasicGreatGuy said:
icon175x175.png


*Taken from the iTunes Preview page.

"Description

Adblock Fast is a free, open-source ad blocker!

Just as webpages grew bloated with ads, so too have ad blockers grown bloated with little-used filtering rules and features that sap their speed and hog your device’s disk space, CPU cycles, and memory. Adblock Fast runs an optimized ruleset to accelerate pages more but consume less system resources than other ad blockers do.

Adblock Fast blocks ads in Safari not in other apps. To allow Adblock Fast to block in Safari:

1. press the Home button on your iPhone or iPad,
2. tap the “Settings” app,
3. tap “Safari” > (under “ General”) “Content Blockers”, then
4. toggle the “Adblock Fast” switch on.

To unblock ads, navigate to the “Adblock Fast” app.

To see the effect of Adblock Fast on a particular page, you may have to clear Safari’s cache (tap “Settings” > “Safari” > “Clear History and Website Data”) before reloading the page.

About us:

10x is an award-winning app studio based in Palo Alto and San Francisco. Our aim is to design the finest mobile and web experiences in the world.

...More
10x Web SiteAdblock Fast Support
Screenshots
iPhone iPad
screen322x572.jpeg

screen322x572.jpeg

screen322x572.jpeg


Adblock Fast app design - A

Even though Adblock Fast is a free content blocker, one can tell that the developers gave some thought to the design and layout of the app. The animation upon opening the app catches the eye. While the app only has one page, the developers have made it easy for the user to turn on and off ad-blocking by simply tapping the main app screen log once, as well as providing a contact help email address for Adblock Fast by pressing the "HELP" text on the app page. Pressing the "HELP" text also explains to the user in a succinct manner, how to enable the app in Safari.

Adblock Fast blocking power - A

Out of the free content blockers reviewed thus far, Adblock Fast has done the best job loading and rendering the test webpages. I can tell that the developers have done a lot more than cut and paste the json file into the app. Take note developers who have created content blockers. If you want to stand out, take heed. Anyone can cut and paste lists. And the results of several of my reviews lately show (in my opinion) that many have done just that. And that is one of the reasons why the same websites have the same problem in so many content blockers.

I liked what I saw.

* Your experience may differ from mine due to several variables.

Adblock Fast's blocking power was tested using the following websites Time Magazine, CNN, Yahoo, Macrumors, Amazon, Fox News, Huffington Post, iMore, The Verge, National Geographic, Crackle, Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Kat.cr, The Pirate... MacWorld, MSNBC, Apple, Ebaums World, ImDB, YouTube, Hotels.com, Digiday, Reddit, Craigslist (local), Cult of Mac, blog.buttermouth, ESPN, Welt.de, Ciudad.com.ar, ABC.com.py, Times of Israel,***** 9to5toys, Straits Times, Str.sg, info.singtel.com, Times of India, Indian Express, and Courier.co.uk.

Unless otherwise noted by the * symbol, all sites loaded correctly without any pop ups or blank advertising boxes.

* Site did not load

** Site loaded correctly but clicking links on main page or subsequent page didn't work.

*** Site loaded correctly but did not block all ad(s) on main page or subsequent site pages.

**** Site did not correctly load all non ad page elements (e.g. pictures, video, text etc.)

***** Site loaded correctly with no ads or pop ups. Empty advertisement blocks were noted.

****** Site loaded correctly but did not stop pop up message or redirects.

Adblock Fast speed - A

I don't know about "the world's fastest," (as the app claims) but Adblock Fast is fast (at least in my experience). In my opinion, it is just as fast as Purify. It stands out in the app crowd.

Adblock price and developer contact - A

The A rating is solely based on the price of the app, (free) as I did not contact the developer and I do not know their customer service history.

Adblock Fast overall rating - A+

If you are looking for a free app that blocks ads, doesn't leave you waiting, and doesn't require tweaking, I recommend Adblock Fast.

In my opinion, the developers of Purify, Crystal, Admop and Silentium better stay on their proverbial code toes. With Adblock Fast available, said developers better give customers strong reasons to buy their app and stick with it.

I wish the app had Whitelisting ability and social widget blocking. Maybe if enough people request it, the fine folks at Rocketshipapps will incorporate the features in the next update.
Click to expand...


very disappointed with Adblock fast.


This is adblock fast

https://dl.pushbulletusercontent.com/IYrfq1ejORSYQgcIrqhObM4sAi7oVFxI/picture.jpg


This is with Purify

https://dl.pushbulletusercontent.com/l1Mh3dfi7c0RzK7EAzbXYT7V16FpEReP/picture.jpg


failed the basic test
 
D

dokindo

macrumors regular
Feb 4, 2009
239
28
  • Like
Reactions: hank moody
Apple_Robert

Apple_Robert

Contributor
Original poster
Sep 21, 2012
35,664
52,462
In a van down by the river
  • Like
Reactions: hank moody
Apple_Robert

Apple_Robert

Contributor
Original poster
Sep 21, 2012
35,664
52,462
In a van down by the river
hasanahmad said:
very disappointed with Adblock fast.


This is adblock fast

https://dl.pushbulletusercontent.com/IYrfq1ejORSYQgcIrqhObM4sAi7oVFxI/picture.jpg


This is with Purify

https://dl.pushbulletusercontent.com/l1Mh3dfi7c0RzK7EAzbXYT7V16FpEReP/picture.jpg


failed the basic test
Click to expand...
If you are going to judge a content blocker on the basis of whether or not it can block all ads on every site you decide to open, you might as well delete Purify and forget installing any other content blocker.

Even desktop and laptop ad-blockers aren't able to block every single thing every single time.
 
M

Mactaculious

macrumors regular
Oct 6, 2014
106
5
miknos said:
Ben Brooks reviewed a bunch of ad blockers too. Worth a check:

https://brooksreview.net/2015/09/content-blocker-test/

Bottom line:
xJgpenV.png




K59Ksio.png
Click to expand...

The feature set is what got me hooked and am still using this. I've returned Crystal, Silentium, Blockr and Purity. In terms of speeds it's pretty relative to the person using it (so many factors come into play on this). It's either going to be horrendously slow or otherwise not really noticeable between content blockers.
 
T

tops2

macrumors 6502
Dec 30, 2014
373
190
hasanahmad said:
very disappointed with Adblock fast.


This is adblock fast

https://dl.pushbulletusercontent.com/IYrfq1ejORSYQgcIrqhObM4sAi7oVFxI/picture.jpg


This is with Purify

https://dl.pushbulletusercontent.com/l1Mh3dfi7c0RzK7EAzbXYT7V16FpEReP/picture.jpg


failed the basic test
Click to expand...

I wonder if sometimes there's just a bug in iOS 9 in relations to ad blockers. Sometime yesterday and this morning I was having problem with one ad blocker I was testing. But sometime later today, the same ad blocker started again so I'm not sure what happened.
 
miknos

miknos

Suspended
Mar 14, 2008
940
793
I'm guessing he forgot to turn on the toggle in the app (Adblock Fast) or in Safari options. I'm not seeing ads either.

Adblock Fast could use a more visible toggle. Something like a big On and Off.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hank moody
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom