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marvz

macrumors 65816
Aug 27, 2012
1,001
443
Berlin
It would be really awesome if someone could test all of most popular content blocker (Blockr, Crystal, Purify, Peace, etc.).
For the moment I will stay with Crystal since it's free and hopefully will get more options when it becomes premium.
 
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protobiont

macrumors 6502a
Jul 6, 2010
650
141
I am currently using Crystal. And boy, does it make a difference! Tested it with iMore, since I knew it always takes a lot of time to load. With the adblocker enabled, that website literally flies in Safari. It's incredible! You don't know half how much I love Apple for having iOS 9 support 'content blockers'. Of course they knew most of these content blockers were going to be adblockers.

And I think it's good that they've done this. Not entirely to mock website owners because of all their ads. But also so they will realize that the current ad model just doesn't work. Especially with sites like iMore. It's just ridiculuous how slow it loads with all those ads. They're going to have their game changed if they want to prevent people from using adblockers.

How will that happen, other than creating paywalls or going out of business?
 

John Mcgregor

Suspended
Aug 21, 2015
1,257
1,485
Newport
How will that happen, other than creating paywalls or going out of business?

Darwin says adapt or die.

But anyone selling an ad blocker instead of giving it away is a ****ing douchebag.

It would be really awesome if someone could test all of most popular content blocker (Blockr, Crystal, Purify, Peace, etc.).
For the moment I will stay with Crystal since it's free and hopefully will get more options when it becomes premium.

Some sell ads and some sell apps to block those ads. Nothing strange here. Who is the ****ing hypocrite in this story? The one selling ads or the one selling ad blockers?
 
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PCtoMAC1

macrumors 6502
Mar 16, 2012
423
181
Hey everyone. Just curious to see what the thoughts are in regards to the various ad blocker apps for iPhone now that it's enabled in iOS 9.

Thanks!!
 
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dugbug

macrumors 68000
Aug 23, 2008
1,929
2,147
Somewhere in Florida
Crystal is free with good feedback mechanism. It has no whitelist nor does it work with parental controls.

Purify and 1blocker solve those shortcomings but are paid. 1blocker has a free-to-try model so you can try one facet of it.

Purify needs a feedback extension. It does however work great.

I have had sites fail with all of them but very few
 
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dugbug

macrumors 68000
Aug 23, 2008
1,929
2,147
Somewhere in Florida
Oh note I'm only referring to blockers that do both ads and trackers. There are some privacy-only ones such as peace which uses the excellent ghostery database.
 

J@ffa

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2002
684
47
Behind you!
Oh note I'm only referring to blockers that do both ads and trackers. There are some privacy-only ones such as peace which uses the excellent ghostery database.

Peace blocks ads too. I'm using it and it works really well. Has a comment blocking option as well, which is nice.
 
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KALLT

macrumors 603
Sep 23, 2008
5,380
3,415
Crystal is doing fine, it was free when I got it. I tested 1Blocker as well, basically to complement Crystal with a tracking block list. There will be more blockers soon and they will inevitably be free.

It doesn’t feel right to me to pay that much for an adblocker. A tip is alright to cover the expenses for the developer licence, but not €3 or even €4. Not only are they earning money from interfering with other people’s business model, they are also free-riding on the work done by those who maintain the block lists in the first place as well as the open source code of existing browser extensions and the work done by Apple to make the blockers possible. The amount of code needed to create a blocker is trivial and there are ample of open source examples on Github that people can use. This feels like an opportunistic cash-grab to me and I’m not supporting it, even though I recognise that some amount of work has been poured into the development of these apps.
 

Jonx

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2004
249
31
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.
 

497902

Suspended
Sep 25, 2010
905
229
I'm currently using Weblock (blocks ads on WiFi) and Adblock browser (from Eyeo, developer of Adblock Plus). Doesn't it make more sense to wait until they release updates than to invest money into random new apps? (And no, Crystal isn't free anymore, it's $0.99 now)
 

phillytim

macrumors 68000
Aug 12, 2011
1,784
1,272
Philadelphia, PA
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 ...

I took the first, popular, FREE thing (Crystal) that was available to me, and am using it. Already my experience is so much better with Safari browsing!

And that's probably pretty much the last thought I'll give these ad blockers.

I took a look at Purify and contemplated Blockr and 1Blocker; but free is for me!
 

Hanterdro

macrumors regular
Nov 23, 2014
127
289
I tested Crystal and Blockr and using Blockr, because of the better features and better UI.
 

TeeRav19

macrumors member
Sep 8, 2015
41
9
Houston, TX
Using Crystal right now with no complaints. However due to several comments above (blocking video on IGN), I am probably going to make the switch to Blockr.
 

funkymonkeyboy

macrumors regular
Aug 17, 2010
195
59
Northern Scotland
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).

Purify is made by the same guy that does ublock.
 

Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
20,392
23,893
Singapore
Using Crystal right now with no complaints. However due to several comments above (blocking video on IGN), I am probably going to make the switch to Blockr.
Use the share sheet extension to report this issue to the developer of Crystal; he is usually quite prompt when it comes to resolving such issues.
 
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Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
20,392
23,893
Singapore
Crystal is doing fine, it was free when I got it. I tested 1Blocker as well, basically to complement Crystal with a tracking block list. There will be more blockers soon and they will inevitably be free.

It doesn’t feel right to me to pay that much for an adblocker. A tip is alright to cover the expenses for the developer licence, but not €3 or even €4. Not only are they earning money from interfering with other people’s business model, they are also free-riding on the work done by those who maintain the block lists in the first place as well as the open source code of existing browser extensions and the work done by Apple to make the blockers possible. The amount of code needed to create a blocker is trivial and there are ample of open source examples on Github that people can use. This feels like an opportunistic cash-grab to me and I’m not supporting it, even though I recognise that some amount of work has been poured into the development of these apps.

I don't mind paying for it because I want to send a message - that online mobile ads are getting out of hand, and need to be better managed. And if websites can't or won't do anything to rein in this problem, then don't blame users for taking matters into their own hands.

At $1, I certainly don't mind gifting Crystal to all my colleagues at work running ios9...
 
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