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The iOS 9 Content Blocker thread

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
thatJohann

thatJohann

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Given the amount of content blockers coming out for iOS 9, I figured having a wiki thread to list them all here and post impressions will be useful for all of us to keep us all informed.

Note: iOS 9 Content Blockers only work with 64-bit devices. The following iOS 9-capable devices do not support Content Blockers: iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPod Touch 5th generation, iPad 2, iPad "3", iPad "4".

Here are all the content blockers I'm aware of so far:
Open Source (For people with 32-bit iPhones and a penchant for DIY)
  • BlockParty (Github, App Store offering to come)
  • Adios (Abandoned, Developer joined Purify)
Please add more as you discover them to the list and link to their sites or twitter for more info. Also post impressions!

TIP: In Mobile Safari tap and hold the Reload arrow to get an option to reload the page without Content Blockers.

Reviews for some of the above-mentioned blockers can be found here.
 
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thatJohann

thatJohann

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Jul 5, 2013
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In the last couple of days I've been beta testing 4 different content blockers via Test Flight:

Freedom, Adamant, Silentium and Blockr

As of now, my preferred one is Blockr. Specifically because I find it handles the empty white space where ads used to be better. It removes that white space like the banner ad was never there. The other ones usually leave a blank white space where the banner ad was.
 
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Applerx

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Sep 12, 2015
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I have been testing 1Blocker and Blockr.

While 1Blocker offers more options, I'll buy and stick with Blockr as it works perfectly for me while 1Blocker breaks some of the sites I visit frequently.
 
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Dephibio

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Oct 3, 2013
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Purify developer claims that his content blocker is faster than Crystal. We'll find out soon enough.

CO10cNhUAAATNRg.jpg-large.jpg
 
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Rigby

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Aug 5, 2008
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Dephibio said:
Purify developer claims that his content blocker is faster than Crystal. We'll find out soon enough.
Click to expand...
It's amazing how much guerilla markting there is for these adblockers. Seems like the developers are expecting a big bonanza. :)

People should realize that all of them use the same blocking mechanism, meaning that the actual blocking is performed by Webkit, not the blocker apps. They only provide the filtering rules. The differences will be in the user-configurable customization options and the amount of work the developers put into optimizing the rule sets for Webkit. I bet we'll see a wave of cheap blocker apps that simply take some existing rule set (like Easylist) and translate it to the Apple format, and only a few developers will take the time to create optimized rule sets to make sure they can be executed efficiently by Webkit ...
 
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dilap

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Apr 18, 2014
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thatJohann said:
In the last couple of days I've been beta testing 4 different content blockers via Test Flight:

Freedom, Adamant, Silentium and Blockr

As of now, my preferred one is Blockr. Specifically because I find it handles the empty white space where ads used to be better. It removes that white space like the banner ad was never there. The other ones usually leave a blank white space where the banner ad was.
Click to expand...

How do you test Blockr?
 
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0000111

macrumors member
Jul 24, 2014
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hasanahmad said:
so the option to turn on content blocker only shows up when you install the APP?
Click to expand...

lemimouth said:
Serious ? Yes you must install a content blocker before you can enable it
Click to expand...


I’m also having this issue on 9.1 PB ... there is no “content blocker” option in my preferences. Am I doing it wrong?

EDIT:

yep, you have to download one first, then the setting magically appears in Preferences > Safari > Content Blockers.
 
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lemimouth

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Feb 14, 2015
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Rigby said:
simply take some existing rule set (like Easylist) and translate it to the Apple format, and only a few developers will take the time to create optimized rule sets to make sure they can be executed efficiently by Webkit ...
Click to expand...

That's exactly what i'm doing with my own (for personal use only, will never release it on app store) content blocker. I use the script created by snoack (https://github.com/snoack/abp2blocklist/tree/compatible) to convert easylist to json compatible with iOS. How does this compare to an "optimized" list ? I would be interested to see real use performance comparaison
 
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