The iOS 9 Content Blocker thread

[nj1266]

Holy smokes! I just tested Purify and it's the best of the lot that I've used.

I went to many of the pages you listed and thus far, it loads pages faster than all the others and does a better job with the content of the page. I'm super impressed.

I'll keep messing with content blockers, but Purify will most likely be the main one I use.

In your opinion is it worth the 3.99 admission price over 0.99 for Crystal?

 

[Yun0]

crystal wins. not overpriced, dev is active & caring about their product, & its getting a bunch of stuff in the next update(s) anyway

 

[funkymonkeyboy]

Another one found.

Ad Block Multi - Content Blocking Extension

 

[Apple_Robert]

Another one found.

Ad Block Multi - Content Blocking Extension

Add it to the OP.

 

[funkymonkeyboy]

And another

Ad-Blocker for Safari

 

[lewisd25]

What if... the dudes at Ghostery never imagined how well the app was going to sell and after all the hype of the last couple of days they decided to back off and stop licensing their database. They offered Marco to keep all the earning he made in those couple of days in exchange for the source code.

Maybe they will release an official Ghostery blocker in a few weeks.

Ding, ding. We have a winner!

 

[scjr]

In your opinion is it worth the 3.99 admission price over 0.99 for Crystal?

I prefer how Purify loads pages. It's faster and pages are handled better. I would choose Purify. Having said that, Crystal is great as well and it's 0.99 cents. I think these two are the best of the bunch thus far.

 

[funkymonkeyboy]

I have updated the first page with the extra ones I found including AdMop which I am testing now and it's very good. Uses easy list filters.

 

[Jack426]

I'm noticing that some pages will not load at all. They show up as completely blank. I'm not sure if there is an easy way to disable it without having to go into settings?

Don't forget to report the website as "not working" in the Crystal App. I had the same issue viewing Vineyard Vines website yesterday, and after reporting, it loaded up fine today. The developer seems to be on top of any issues like this.

 

[EJ8]

i love how we can see lists's updates in Crystal. Feels like the app doesn't stop improving and i love this. I love an app that evolves and improves and the fact we can see that.

A counter with the number of ads blocked would be awesome too.

I just found this one that has stats: Adblock Mobile - https://appsto.re/us/2uU02.i

 

[Rigby]

Newsweek

Fox News

The Verge

New York Times

Mac World

Yahoo

Just to name a few. It has been my experience, that as a whole, websites did not load as they should, compared to Crystal and Purify, even with the Media Blocker turned off.

Hm, I just tried NYTimes, Verge and Yahoo and they load just fine (at least the main page and one random link deeper). Perhaps you have multiple blockers active?

 

[deeznuts]

crystal wins. not overpriced, dev is active & caring about their product, & its getting a bunch of stuff in the next update(s) anyway

Crystal still shows sponsored ads thou unlike Purify

 

[funkymonkeyboy]

I just found this one that has stats: Adblock Mobile - https://appsto.re/us/2uU02.i

This app works in a different way. Not a content blocker.

 

[C DM]

I just found this one that has stats: Adblock Mobile - https://appsto.re/us/2uU02.i

Don't think that one works using the iOS 9 content blocker implementation.

 

[deeznuts]

I tried Purify, its beautiful & fast. Then combined Purify+Freedom=boss

 

[Rigby]

I just found this one that has stats: Adblock Mobile - https://appsto.re/us/2uU02.i

Careful: This one (and a number of other older blockers) does *not* use Apple's official API. They work by redirecting your traffic using a custom VPN or proxy profile. There are security and privacy risks.

It is not possible to collect stats about blocked sites using Apple's official content blocker mechanism, since this type of blocker never sees what you are doing in the browser.

Jeez, the marketing for Purify is really out of control ...

 

[EJ8]

This app works in a different way. Not a content blocker.

Ah ok. My bad.

 

[funkymonkeyboy]

Crystal has updated its block list to version 6.

http://m.courier.co.uk still not working.

 

[mpavilion]

Do ad blockers actually stop ads from being served up to your device, and result in (recorded) lost "impressions" for the ad network – with financial implications your favorite websites?

Or do they just block ads from being displayed, but no one knows you're not seeing them (unless perhaps there's a measurable drop in people actually clicking on ads)?

Given the big ethical debate surrounding ad blockers, I assume it's the former – but I've never been clear on this.

 

[inscrewtable]

Blockr is great one too, Crystal kills the sidebar of feedly site, Blockr doesn't. It has white listing and also cookie warning blocking as well. I'm liking it so far.

blockr appears to be the only one that allow media blocking which is good when bandwidth is restricted like on the free train wifi.

 

[Che Castro]

how is the freedom app compared to crystal ?

 

[Zirel]

Do ad blockers actually stop ads from being served up to your device, and result in (recorded) lost "impressions" for the ad network – with financial implications your favorite websites?

Or do they just block ads from being displayed, but no one knows you're not seeing them (unless perhaps there's a measurable drop in people actually clicking on ads)?

Given the big ethical debate surrounding ad blockers, I assume it's the former – but I've never been clear on this.

They block ads from being loaded at all. It's like the ad server is down.

They can do 2 things, and 2 things only: block loading, hide based on CSS tags.

 

[dfgddikf]

Glad my mini review was of some help.

Whatever scripting he is using is definitely different than the others I have used thus far. I think the price of the app is way overinflated. That aside, I can't deny it stands out (right now) above the others.

These apps are all the same. Their only function is to feed a blocklist to Apples api. If there are minimal speed differences, it is because of the size of the blocklist.

 

[DanEp]

I downloaded AdMop to try out after having a good experience with Crystal. First thing I noticed was that to Update the AdMop Blocking Rules, you must:

Please log into iCloud to update the rules.

Why would they require such a thing? I wrote them with the question (not easy to find an email!) and have not yet heard back. The few reviews in the itunes store seem over the top glowingly positive.

 

[MaciMac100]

Got my money back from Apple. Peace.