Safest Approach to Visiting Certain Sites on iPhone?

[DigitalAR]

I apologize first off for the topic, but we are adults and figured I’d ask straight up.

My friends and I got together yesterday for a New Years Eve Eve dinner and the topic came up about Adult Websites. One friend mentioned they don’t visit adult pornography sites at all, while two other friends admitted they visit adult websites on occasion such as when for example their spouse is out of town for a week. Another one of our friends admitted they pay a monthly subscription for an adult website that allows them to download 4K videos and not deal with any ads.

Personally I haven’t visit porn websites since the days of Limewire and Kazza but have admitted to visiting the major free sites a few times a year (*******, Xvideos).

The reason I’m writing this thread in the first place:​

The reason I don’t visit those is cause I always feared that visiting adult pornography sites, aside from not being healthy overall for the male mind, is that I truly believe visiting those websites will slow my iPhone down. I don’t know if the websites inject some sort of code or malware or just extra unnecessary files that clog up and slow down my phone.

I know the overall best answer is to just not ever visit adult websites and couldn’t help but feel astonished that the one guy in our group who pays the monthly subscription for pornography probably doesn’t slow his phone down since he’s visiting (probably) a secure website.

On the other hand, I’ve heard that the major free sites such as ******* are pretty safe…. Yet I still avoid ever visiting *******.

Heck, even if a porn pop up ad appeared anywhere during my browsing I would probably freak out and immediately close it for fear of it slowing down my phone.

I post this specifically for iPhone cause for some reason everyone at dinner yesterday agreed that they never these adult websites on anything other than their iPhones for quite sometime now.

I feel the answers are most likely; 1. Don’t ever visit these adult sites, 2. Pay for a premium monthly subscription and only visit secured sites free from external ads and bloatware, 3. Trust only some free Reputable sites such as *******, 4. Just search TikTok for girls dancing in skimpy outfits as it’s practically softcore at this point.

 

[Denzo]

Great topic choice. Not sure what the question is ?

 

[DigitalAR]

I suppose what I’m wondering is how do some websites successfully infiltrate the iPhone despite iOS robustness.

Also wondering why and how some websites allows things to get tacked onto my iPhone as opposed to other websites; in the above example our friends that pays a monthly subscription; although he does it for the high quality downloaded videos not so much tue safety/privacy aspect.

I get the feeling as ad blocker wouldn’t be effective in the long run. Especially if someone is downloading these videos from free adult sites.

 

[Marsikus]

What do you expect to see so traumatizing there?
Also, why on Earth any legit business that wants to retain paying customers as long as possible, why would put any malware on your devices?

They only thing they may save into your phone is browser cookies.

 

[Marsikus]

BTW, if your friend who said they don't look at porn is a male, they're lying. Now they may not watch it as much as the others, but they look at it. All males do.

Ahah, I remember one story from university.
Two dudes joked something about amount of porn on each one’s laptops. And one our group mate girl responded arrogantly: “And I don’t watch such things, unlike someone.”
Soon those dudes found 20GB of porn on her laptop in DC++ share. While the whole HDD was about 40Gb.
🤣

 

[kitKAC]

I suppose what I’m wondering is how do some websites successfully infiltrate the iPhone despite iOS robustness.

Those sites are using zero-day exploits and are targeting very specific people.

 

[Mark Stone]

BTW, if your friend who said they don't look at porn is a male, they're lying. Now they may not watch it as much as the others, but they look at it. All males do.

I call BS on this. Many do, many don’t.

 

[DigitalAR]

Okay so for me it’s not about what I may see on these adult free porn sites. To me this is about slowing down my iPhone. I’d much rather completely 100% percent avoid porn websites if in any way they slow down my phone. And so far I get the feeling that free websites, especially those that allow you to both download videos and also are riddled with ads are the culprits in slowing down my
iPhone.

 

[ian87w]

Okay so for me it’s not about what I may see on these adult free porn sites. To me this is about slowing down my iPhone. I’d much rather completely 100% percent avoid porn websites if in any way they slow down my phone. And so far I get the feeling that free websites, especially those that allow you to both download videos and also are riddled with ads are the culprits in slowing down my
iPhone.

It's actually quite simple. The solution is the same as any other websites.
First step is to simply use an ad blocker. This by itself will already cut off a lot risk factors and clickbaits.

Second is to use common sense. Simply be aware of what you're downloading. Simply relying on streaming instead of downloads will also help reduce the risk surfaces.

Worse comes to worse, iOS is quite hard to be exploited. A simple executable won't do a thing. Avoid anything that wants to install a certificate or profiles.

 

[Danfango]

Safest approach which applies to anything other than mainstream web browsing:

1. Don't use your phone, use a Mac.
2. Install Firefox
3. Install uBlock Origin in Firefox
4. Use that

Rationale is it keeps your primary browser away from the potentially dangerous stuff and the ad blocking capabilities of uBlock Origin on Firefox are second to none. And you can keep your credential stores away from it easily.

Don't download anything. If you want to pull videos down use https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp not any weird browser extensions that require an app to be installed.

 

[Andeddu]

More hardcore = more malware.

 

[Marsikus]

If only the page with video lags painfully, that may be due to big amount of JavaScript running: for page main content, banners, annoying popups.

If your phone became laggy in general:
- make sure your battery is in acceptable health levels.
- try to reboot or reset the ios.
- make sure you didn’t install antivirus or something weird else.
- in last resort, go to Apple to diagnose for hardware issues.

 

[JPack]

Use Firefox Focus

 

[SalisburySam]

I use VPNs on my iPhone, iPad, and iMac for everything. I want that level of invisibility because I don’t need others wandering around my banking accounts, investment accounts, and private volunteer work.

So @DigitalAR would not a VPN answer your porn needs?

 

[Sami13496]

I think if you use Private Browsing mode then there should be nothing that stays on your phone after you close that window. Assuming you just watch the videos and don't sign up for anything or download anything from those sites, of course. Feel free to correct me if Im wrong.

 

[DigitalAR]

It's actually quite simple. The solution is the same as any other websites.
First step is to simply use an ad blocker. This by itself will already cut off a lot risk factors and clickbaits.

Second is to use common sense. Simply be aware of what you're downloading. Simply relying on streaming instead of downloads will also help reduce the risk surfaces.

Worse comes to worse, iOS is quite hard to be exploited. A simple executable won't do a thing. Avoid anything that wants to install a certificate or profiles.

Yeah, of everyone in the group I was the only one that mentioned preferring downloading videos as opposed to just streaming them. I know streaming is safer than downloading but hate the buffering and lag on streaming.

More hardcore = more malware.

😳

If only the page with video lags painfully, that may be due to big amount of JavaScript running: for page main content, banners, annoying popups.

If your phone became laggy in general:
- make sure your battery is in acceptable health levels.
- try to reboot or reset the ios.
- make sure you didn’t install antivirus or something weird else.
- in last resort, go to Apple to diagnose for hardware issues.

Specifically what I’ve noticed is my iPhone will work at 100% and then after a few weeks of visiting these free adult sites and downloading videos onto my iPhone the phone itself will get slow and even opening apps and even typing is laggy.

I just restored my iPhone today and haven’t visited and adult websites and my iPhone is running completely
Smoothly. Admittedly I did visit RedGifs.com but just viewing gifs I feel pretty safe.

If I was to visit all the adult websites again now and download then I’m confident in a week or two my iPhone would become sluggish again.

 

[DigitalAR]

I use VPNs on my iPhone, iPad, and iMac for everything. I want that level of invisibility because I don’t need others wandering around my banking accounts, investment accounts, and private volunteer work.

So @DigitalAR would not a VPN answer your porn needs?

I’ve been using SurfShark during every mentioned above, using SurfShark VPN the entire time.

 

[antiprotest]

Borrow a friend's phone to surf dangerous sites.

 

[clueless88]

Get a “burner” phone!

 

[DigitalAR]

I suppose unnecessary cookies and trackers and whatever else also isn’t limited to just adult sites.

Suppose we can consider this answered/resolved.

 

[Fat_Guy]

Don’t open an account. Don’t pay for anything. Turn safe search off. Don’t use the Tor browser.

 

[Marsikus]

I suppose unnecessary cookies and trackers and whatever else also isn’t limited to just adult sites.

Yes, this is everywhere. You can also set your browser to reject all cookies.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I first assumed you’d only visit questionable sites via iOS which is specifically made to be closed & practically impenetrable. But then remembered something about iOS still just running Safari, in whatever browsers wrapper it’s skinned in, so maybe FireFox on the mac actually is preferable since it can actually be run securely. Prob doesn’t matter if going to the big Canadian corporate & pay sites, but if luxuretv (or whatever) from Russia, prob worth an extra layer of protection. …not that Russian programmers & filth peddlers ever got up to anything nefarious ahem...

Government Advisory Warning: adult content is not for children and if you are the type to have state/religion-sanctioned relationships and marriages and offspring, it may wreck all the above and burn your suburban tract housing down, white picket fence & all. If you aren’t, what do you mean you “aren’t”? We have no concept of this “aren’t”.

 

[Alex Cai]

I apologize first off for the topic, but we are adults and figured I’d ask straight up.

My friends and I got together yesterday for a New Years Eve Eve dinner and the topic came up about Adult Websites. One friend mentioned they don’t visit adult pornography sites at all, while two other friends admitted they visit adult websites on occasion such as when for example their spouse is out of town for a week. Another one of our friends admitted they pay a monthly subscription for an adult website that allows them to download 4K videos and not deal with any ads.

Personally I haven’t visit porn websites since the days of Limewire and Kazza but have admitted to visiting the major free sites a few times a year (*******, Xvideos).

The reason I’m writing this thread in the first place:​

The reason I don’t visit those is cause I always feared that visiting adult pornography sites, aside from not being healthy overall for the male mind, is that I truly believe visiting those websites will slow my iPhone down. I don’t know if the websites inject some sort of code or malware or just extra unnecessary files that clog up and slow down my phone.

I know the overall best answer is to just not ever visit adult websites and couldn’t help but feel astonished that the one guy in our group who pays the monthly subscription for pornography probably doesn’t slow his phone down since he’s visiting (probably) a secure website.

On the other hand, I’ve heard that the major free sites such as ******* are pretty safe…. Yet I still avoid ever visiting *******.

Heck, even if a porn pop up ad appeared anywhere during my browsing I would probably freak out and immediately close it for fear of it slowing down my phone.

I post this specifically for iPhone cause for some reason everyone at dinner yesterday agreed that they never these adult websites on anything other than their iPhones for quite sometime now.

I feel the answers are most likely; 1. Don’t ever visit these adult sites, 2. Pay for a premium monthly subscription and only visit secured sites free from external ads and bloatware, 3. Trust only some free Reputable sites such as *******, 4. Just search TikTok for girls dancing in skimpy outfits as it’s practically softcore at this point.

How can a website slow a phone down? It’s not possible.

 

[winxmac]

For iOS browsing, I install adguard and enable it in Safari settings... I paid for adguard pro...

For android browsing, I install Yandex browser and install adguard and enable it in Yandex settings...

For computer browsing, I install adguard, uBlock Origin, Kaspersky, and Malwarebytes browser guard [all browser add-ins] on Firefox, Chrome, Chromium Edge... For Safari, I just install Adguard... It may seem to be overkill...

Also, I have Admuncher installed on my Windows computer...

This is how I browse... On a few occasions, I use Surfshark for geo-restricted website or if the speed is throttled...