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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.
Hallo78 said:
How does a content blocker work?
Is there any chance, that a content blocker can contain a virus and every password and so on could get hacked?
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A blocker only sends a detailed block list in a text format to Safari. Safari then recompiles that list and does the blocking natively. Apps cannot see what you are doing in Safari and developers don’t get any feedback. They pretty much only send a list of things you want to block to Safari, nothing more. The only thing developers can do with blockers is preventing websites from loading or hiding particular HTML elements. They cannot inject anything or ask Safari to load anything.

ericg301 said:
honest question - do any of the blockers work in iOS chrome? i thought chrome had switched over to safari-web view a while back? or at least is there a way to run a share sheet extension to "clean up" a page after it's loaded in chrome?
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Apps need to support the new Safari View Controller to get access to content blockers. However, Safari View Controllers are very strict and are actually miniature versions of Safari that developers can call within their apps. This works great for apps that occasionally want to present content to you in a webpage, but it’s not designed for developers who want to build their own browsers. I doubt that Google is going to support it, it would defeat the purpose of Chrome.
 
Hallo78 said:
How does a content blocker work?
Is there any chance, that a content blocker can contain a virus and every password and so on could get hacked?
Click to expand...
No, the content blocking interface has been designed by Apple in a secure way. The blockers are not directly involved in your browsing (and don't see what sites you visit). They just provide a set of rules to Webkit about which objects should be blocked on which sites. Contrary to, say, keyboard extensions, there are no privacy or security risks.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
A lack of in app feedback ability in Purify is a big negative, especially for the price of the app, in my opinion.
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Tell me about it. I had to go to the app store, locate the app, find the app website, visit the app website, locate a website pointing to the author, visit that website, locate his contact email, click that to initiate an email, paste the URL of issue, etc.

With crystal it has a safari extension for reporting a problem. that extension picks up the URL already and allows you to add a bit of intel on the problem and hit send. VERY WELL DONE.
 
Installed the app "Peace". I never knew how bad ads were slowing safari down on my 5s until now. Every page now loads instantly and I don't get any stupid hangs when trying to interact with the page. This is seriously my favorite feature of iOS9.
 
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Trying out both Peace and Crystal at the moment.

One thing is noticed is that comments were disabled on Cnet with Peace, but not Crystal. Since Peace is using the Ghostery database, I surmise it's due to a tracker being disabled (likely the Lyfefire cookie which allows comments). It's not an issue on my Mac because I can manually toggle which trackers to block and which to allow. Not so easy on iOS, where blockers are all-or-nothing.

With Crystal, I initially encountered the same problem, which was quickly remedied after I pointed out this issue to the developer (This I must personally commend Dean on; he has been most responsive and engaged during the beta testing process). So with crystal enabled (and Peace disabled), I can comment on Cnet with no issues, while still blocking out the ads.

Just my own experience.
 
Abazigal said:
Trying out both Peace and Crystal at the moment.

One thing is noticed is that comments were disabled on Cnet with Peace, but not Crystal. Since Peace is using the Ghostery database, I surmise it's due to a tracker being disabled (likely the Lyfefire cookie which allows comments). It's not an issue on my Mac because I can manually toggle which trackers to block and which to allow. Not so easy on iOS, where blockers are all-or-nothing.

With Crystal, I initially encountered the same problem, which was quickly remedied after I pointed out this issue to the developer (This I must personally commend Dean on; he has been most responsive and engaged during the beta testing process). So with crystal enabled (and Peace disabled), I can comment on Cnet with no issues, while still blocking out the ads.

Just my own experience.
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This is why white-listing and custom blocking is so important. I also think that it should be possible to inspect the entire block list. I don’t think a single developer can keep up with so many individual requests.
 
Sparxxx said:
Yep. Crystal + Peace seems a good combo.
For the moment it's still the beginning of those content blockers and in the near future (3-4 months) I am sure we will see some good update or new players (adblock, ublock, perhaps ad.guard and ghostery itself).
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Just a comment here: Purify is actually developed by one of the uBlock developers. It's unlikely that Ghostery will launch their own blocker, since their business model is based on collecting browsing information on an opt-in basis ("Ghostrank"), which is not technically possible using iOS content blockers.
 
inscrewtable said:
For a 4" iPod Touch screen, does 'Crystal' do anything that 'Blockr' does not do?
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You'll have to find out yourself. 😉 It all depends on the filter lists that they use and the sites you visit. Unfortunately the developers of these apps are not transparent about where they source their lists and it's not possible to view them in the apps, so all we have is anecdotal feedback (which obviously depends a lot on what sites people visit).

The developer of Peace says he uses the Ghostery list, and I think 1Blocker actually let's you see its list in the app.
 
Rigby said:
It's unlikely that Ghostery will launch their own blocker, since their business model is based on collecting browsing information on an opt-in basis ("Ghostrank"), which is not technically possible using iOS content blockers.
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Ghostery could create some sort of login "sync" option so that your rule preferences on Desktop match your iOS device. At least that way they would know which rules people use on mobile even if they can't get the full Ghostrank details.
 
KALLT said:
This is why white-listing and custom blocking is so important. I also think that it should be possible to inspect the entire block list. I don’t think a single developer can keep up with so many individual requests.
Click to expand...

So whitelisting is able to be done via "Peace", correct? It doesn't appear to be a function in Crystal.
 
KALLT said:
This is why white-listing and custom blocking is so important. I also think that it should be possible to inspect the entire block list. I don’t think a single developer can keep up with so many individual requests.
Click to expand...
Well, right now, Crystal seems intended as a no-frills, "install-and-forget it's there" type of user experience. I also don't see iOS ad blockers allowing granular controls like letting you see every single tracker and deciding what to block and whatnot. I have no idea if what you mentioned is sustainable for the developer, but he seems to be holding up okay for now.
 
PCtoMAC1 said:
So whitelisting is able to be done via "Peace", correct? It doesn't appear to be a function in Crystal.
Click to expand...

The app needs to support it, yes. Not sure whether Peace does it, I haven’t tried. My concern with Peace is that it’s made by a developer who has stakes in online publishing, so I’m not sure whether I would trust anyone like that.

Michaelgtrusa said:
Like this? https://49a1248a20ae70edc669-d8ad62....rackcdn.com/applenewsformat1442319928114.jpg
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Is News showing entire articles of The Verge?
 
protobiont said:
You're probably right, and it will be interesting to see how it goes down. Here's an interesting piece on the topic from the Verge.
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What would happen if every single person with a device capable of browsing the web started using ad blockers? Nothing. People are smarted than that and when it's about money they are also very creative and fast.

Quit whining and start thinking, because many sites already have about 50/50 ratio of content to ads. Thats absurd.
 
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