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Which ad blocker are you using on Safari?

vjl323 said:
A quick glance at NextDNS' web page shows it is a paid service. Both Pi Hole and AdGuard Home provide the same thing, but installed locally. You can point the upstream DNS in both Pi Hole and AdGuard to any DNS server you want, but the ad blocking is done locally, and domain lookups are cached locally, which offers a faster response time. I've been spoiled, as I've always used a locally installed DNS on my networks [usually TinyDNS aka djbdns]. A few years ago I migrated my home network to a combination of the 2, as I use AdGuard Home as my DNS server that all my clients are pointed to, as that does the ad blocking and uses another physical server running TinyDNS to do the "upstream" lookups. Most people will probably use 1.1.1.1 as the upstream, but I like having more control, and being able to do encrypted DNS helps keep the MIM DNS attacks that have recently plagued macOS and Windows [even when people are using 1.1.1.1 - there's a great article at https://apple.news/AN04Ij3FwSua6UqhRhZCNjg which talks about how an unmanned ISP was hacked an updates that OS' do in the background became comprised - another ISP is also having the issue but has not yet been corrected].

It is my understanding AdGuard's premium product takes the place of NextDNS as they do their own DNS as well. I again, just use their free products, paired with the User Script Extras and their open source AdGuard Home installed on a Raspberry Pi. I use https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-home/id1667119601 on my iPhone/iPad to administer AdGuard Home but you can also use Safari as AdGuard Home has a nice web interface. AdGuard Home does more than just block ads - you can restrict access to certain websites, etc.

NextDNS is a paid [after a certain number of queries] DNS service that would replace any external DNS you have your clients pointing to. If you use 1.1.1.1, and are happy with it, then I would keep that. But if you're looking to block ads for free, using AdGuard Home or Pi Hole, and 1.1.1.1 as the upstream DNS defined in Pi Hole's or AdGuard Home's config, would be the best of both worlds.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your detailed and revelatory post about ad blocking. I will have to ponder each of the points you made and find out more about AdGuard Home, and Pi Hole. I'm not sure I grasp the difference between the AdGuard premium app and more local control via AdGuard Home and Pi Hole, but I'm very curious about these issues. In the meantime AdGuard seems to be working well with 1.1.1.1, but sounds like you have reached another level of outfoxing ads and maintaining your privacy.
 
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riptilian said:
Thank you for your detailed and revelatory post about ad blocking. I will have to ponder each of the points you made and find out more about AdGuard Home, and Pi Hole. I'm not sure I grasp the difference between the AdGuard premium app and more local control via AdGuard Home and Pi Hole, but I'm very curious about these issues. In the meantime AdGuard seems to be working well with 1.1.1.1, but sounds like you have reached another level of outfoxing ads and maintaining your privacy.
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The AdGuard extension works within the confines of the browser's rules, whereas the desktop app works outside the browser, regardless of the rules. For instance, even with Google completely gimping ad blocking extensions in Google Chrome with Manifest V3 (and deprecating V2), the AdGuard desktop app would remain completely unaffected by their nonsense. It will always maintain full ad blocking capabilities, regardless of whatever limitations the browser may be setting. You can also block ads within specific apps on the computer with the desktop app, whereas the extension can only block within the browser. If you want a more detailed list of the differences, here you go.
 
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I found this on Restore Privacy (source). It’s an interesting read:
—————

October 16 2023

Ad and Tracker Blockers Along with Relevant Block Lists or Filter Lists

Types of ad and tracker blockers:
1. Browser extension or content blocker – blocks in browsers only, allows cosmetic filtering i.e. remove empty spaces, ad placeholders
2. Network filtering – blocks across apps and devices, no cosmetic filtering

Examples of browser extensions or content blockers. Many use popular block lists or filter lists; a few use their own:
1. uBlock Origin
2. AdGuard
3. Ghostery
4. AdBlock
5. AdBlock Plus (ABP)
6. 1Blocker (iOS and macOS only)
7. DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials
8. Privacy Badger – works similar to Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP)
9. Startpage Privacy Protection
10. Qwant VIPrivacy
11. AdBlocker Ultimate

Types of network filtering:
1. DNS that blocks ads, trackers
2. VPN that blocks ads, trackers
3. Hosts file or hosts-based lists
4. Client or app that set DNS, local VPN or firewall to block ads, trackers

Examples of DNS that blocks ads, trackers, malware and adult content. Set up via router or client/app:
1. AdGuard
2. NextDNS
3. Cloudflare
4. Quad9

Examples of VPN that blocks ads, trackers, malware and adult content. These VPN use exclusive DNS or firewall for paying customers or subscribers only:
1. NordVPN – Threat Protection (formerly CyberSec)
2. Surfshark – CleanWeb
3. Windscribe – R.O.B.E.R.T. (Remote Omnidirectional Badware Eliminating Robotic Tool)
4. AdGuard VPN – (DNS available for all)
5. ProtonVPN- NetShield

Examples of hosts file or hosts-based lists:
1. AdAway
2. Dan Pollock
3. Peter Lowe
4. Steven Black
5. Goodbye Ads
6. Energized Basic, Blu, Go, Spark

Now, major block lists or filter lists:

For blocking ads:
1. EasyList – most commonly used and referred, majority (99%) of ad blockers use this
2. AdGuard Base – based on EasyList and modified
3. AdGuard Mobile
4. Acceptable Ads – whitelist / allow list to exclude certain ads
5. Language or region specific supplementary EasyList and AdGuard Base variants

For blocking trackers:
1. EasyPrivacy – most commonly used and referred, majority (99%) of tracker blockers use this
2. AdGuard Tracking Protection
3. Fanboy’s Enhanced Tracking List – complements EasyPrivacy
4. Ghostery (WhoTracks.me) – open database to refer but only used in Ghostery
5. Disconnect (Disconnect.me) – used in Edge, Firefox and Disconnect DNS and VPN
6. DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar – used in Safari, Vivaldi and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials and DuckDuckGo browser
7. Badger Sett – used in Privacy Badger, Startpage Privacy Protection

For blocking annoyances e.g. pop-ups, widgets, social media, cookie notices:
1. AdGuard Annoyances – contains whole AdGuard annoyance lists except social media
2. Fanboy’s Annoyances – contains whole Fanboy’s and EasyList annoyances lists
3. Dandelion Sprout’s Annoyances List
4. AdGuard Social Media
5. Fanboy’s Social Blocking
6. AdGuard Cookie Notices
7. EasyList Cookie List
8. AdGuard Popups
9. AdGuard Mobile App Banners
10. AdGuard Other Annoyances

For blocking phishing, spam, malwares, cryptominers. Google Safe Browsing is also recommended to use by itself or with this lists:
1. Online Malicious URL Blocklist
2. Scam Blocklist by DurableNapkin
3. uBlock filters – Badware risks

End of info collected so far.
—————
 
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Wipr + YouTube Premium combo. I’m grandfathered in from an old Google Play Music promotion though so I get a reasonably low price without needing to pretend I’m really in Argentina or something.
 
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ForkHandles said:
I love the selfish irony.

You’re all sharing details on how to block ads on one of your goto forums whose revenue, the cash that pays the writers, is derived mainly from advertising to its visitors.

Ads are there so content creators can get paid. If you don’t like the ads, don’t go to those websites.
Click to expand...
I will have to respectfully disagree with you, here (and I'm only addressing EweTube).
EweTube started as a hosting service, they never produced any content but merely hosted/directed content for individuals. To finance their operations/overhead, they collected info on what their users clicked on, and supplied that info to sellers, so that when you logged into, say, amazoid, the Al Gore Rhythms would prompt amazoid to post ads selling items that you just clicked on (fingernail clippers, fishing boats, detergent, whatever) to increase sales. I understood that, and was completely okay with that.
EweTube got wealthy with this business model; very, VERY wealthy, and you think that would've made them Happy. But no, they needed more. MORE. More money for meeee!!! Nowadays every fourth video shown on EweTube is just an ad, and virtually all the others have ads preceeding, at the end, or embedded within their content. There are exceptions like reruns of late-night comedy, and a few very old established channels (won't name them here as Al Gore R. will go after them too), but I'll be damned if I'll sit thru a one-minute commercial to watch the next 45-second blurb from The Lincoln Project; won't do it.
I vote with my feet, and its sad that I've had to drop many channels because the ads got too thick (I let them know in their Comments section). I do pay a few Patreon creators and try to buy some "merch" from others, when I can. Otherwise, unbridled GREED has, and is, destroying everything about the internet that we were enjoying.
Off soap-box.
 
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On iOS I use Roadblock and BlockBear in tandem. On Mac I stopped using Safari long ago and Firefox is my main browser with simple regular AdBlock
 
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Safari ghostery or adguard free. No problems at all.

For twitch you want to install openVPN server on the AWS network, twitch thinks your are inside of the AWS network with the IP from that VPS.

No adblocker needed for twitch this way
 
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bingefeller said:
I had been using Chrome for a long time and I noticed that Youtube ads are come through. I was using Privacy Badger and uBlock and this was a good combo for many years, but no longer it seems!

I've decided to switch back to Safari and am wondering what ad block is popular? So far I've been reading about Wipr, Ghostery, AdGuard, Adblock Plus, Adblock for Safari, 1Blocker and I just don't know anymore! Wipr seems to get bad reviews on the App store, but I'm using it on iPad and iPhone and it works ok, but it doesn't seem to get good reviews on the MacOS App store.

I spend a lot of time on Youtube, so something that even manages to block the Youtube ads would be great (hopefully without making the video playback quality lower).

I couldn't use Safari without an ad blocker, it would drive me crazy.
Click to expand...
None — Private Relay and ProtonVPN (with NetShield “Block malware, ads, & trackers” option enabled) have completely replaced the need for a separate ad blocker for me.

I previously used 1Blocker, Firefox Focus, Hush, Hyperweb, Magic Lasso, StopTheMadness, and Vinegar. Each worked to a certain extent, but all had side effects that prompted me to look for something better.

For me the simple combination of Private Relay and ProtonVPN provides solid surfing protection and very effective ad blocking that’s sufficient for my needs. Yes, some sites (a very small number in my experience) do not play well with Private Relay, but to me that is an explicit indication that the site is engaged in aggressive “identity trafficking” so I simply refuse to use those sites.
 
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ForkHandles said:
I love the selfish irony.

You’re all sharing details on how to block ads on one of your goto forums whose revenue, the cash that pays the writers, is derived mainly from advertising to its visitors.

Ads are there so content creators can get paid. If you don’t like the ads, don’t go to those websites.
Click to expand...
Some who block ads contribute to MR — which is probably more beneficial than simply allowing ads and rarely clicking them and actually buying something.
 
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riptilian said:
Thank you for your detailed and revelatory post about ad blocking. I will have to ponder each of the points you made and find out more about AdGuard Home, and Pi Hole. I'm not sure I grasp the difference between the AdGuard premium app and more local control via AdGuard Home and Pi Hole, but I'm very curious about these issues. In the meantime AdGuard seems to be working well with 1.1.1.1, but sounds like you have reached another level of outfoxing ads and maintaining your privacy.
Click to expand...
I installed the trial of the AdGuard Premium app on my Mac. It creates a person VPN of sorts [uses the VPN menubar icon, but it is actually a reverse proxy]. Basically it does for a cost, what AdGuard Home does for free. But the caveat is that AdGuard Home needs to be installed on some other hardware. Non-techie people may not want to do that. But it can be done cheaply with a Raspberry Pi, which is my setup.

AdGuard Home and their Mac Premium product work to block ads outside of just a web browser. So you won't see ads in some apps like Apple News. However, if you use the YouTube app on a FireTV or Apple TV device, you will still see ads [for FireTV, there's a 3rd party app called SmartTube which works excellent. There is another app for iOS/iPadOS and tvOS that also blocks ads on YouTube, but it is insanely challenging to setup, and it currently has that feature undocumented on the App Store [it is documented on the website, but not on the App Store listing, so if Apple catches them, that app could be removed from the App Store; it actually doesn't technically remove the ads - it allows you to run a caching system and that caching system does block the ads - it is very complicated, and I believe recently the cat/mouse chase is in YouTube's favor as they found a way to serve ads with the config, but the developers will find a workaround, as they always have before].

Anyway, AdGuard Home may have a slight advantage if you do use certain tvOS apps, like games, as it should block the ads there, just like it does on the iPhone. But certain dedicated apps like the Google YouTube native app, it does not block.

AdGuard Home and Pie-Hole have the same functionality and both are open source, so which one you prefer is up to you. For me, I like AdGuard Home more, and it runs on more platforms [if you have an old Mac sitting in a closet, you can set up AdGuard Home on it, but doing so with Pie-Hole would take a lot of extra work, as there are no native Mac installers for Pie-Hole - it is mainly meant for a Raspberry Pie and Linux distributions, but HomeBrew on Mac might have a Pie-Hole installer.

Price wise, $11 for 3 devices or $20 for 9 devices via StackSocial and AdGuard Premium, is cheaper than buying a Raspberry Pie and a power adapter, etc. But Premium runs on each devices, limited to 3 for individual, or 9 for family purchase. With AdGuard Home, you set it up once, on one device, and just point all your devices to that AdGuard Home device as the DNS and it all Just Works. :)
 
I was weighting up Wipr vs Roadblock and went for Roadblock and its premium version in the end. I wanted something that was only Safari Content Blocker as I didn't want to install any system level extensions or local VPN's or whatever else. It works really well on all of my devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad).

Pro's
- Pretty effective blocking out of the box with ads, trackers and annoyances too
- Doesn't seem to slow the browser down
- Customisable so you can add your own rules (a big plus over Wipr IMO)

Con's
- Premium version is yet another subscription product rather than one time purchase
- Doesn't block Youtube ads although I could just pay for YT Premium.

All in all I'm pretty happy with it, hopefully it'll be well maintained by the developers.
 
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bob_zz123 said:
I was weighting up Wipr vs Roadblock and went for Roadblock and its premium version in the end. I wanted something that was only Safari Content Blocker as I didn't want to install any system level extensions or local VPN's or whatever else. It works really well on all of my devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad).

Pro's
- Pretty effective blocking out of the box with ads, trackers and annoyances too
- Doesn't seem to slow the browser down
- Customisable so you can add your own rules (a big plus over Wipr IMO)

Con's
- Premium version is yet another subscription product rather than one time purchase
- Doesn't block Youtube ads although I could just pay for Premium.

All in all I'm pretty happy with it, hopefully it'll be well maintained by the developers.
Click to expand...
Looks good, but not much for renting SW. I'm of the opinion that if a dev team are worth their salt they will come up with compelling paid for updates, that I have no issue with.

Q-6
 
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Since the free uBlock Origin is not available on iOS and iPadOS Safari, the best free option is Ghostery which is also one of the major ad and tracker blockers on desktop. It has in-app purchases for donation, not pay to unlock meaning all features are unlocked.

AdGuard—also one of the major ad and tracker blockers—also has a free version on App Store but it requires subscription to unlock all features. Nonetheless, the free version should be enough for most users.
 
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Install Browser Guard on Safari browser

Malwarebytes Browser Guard provides a safer and faster web browsing experience by blocking ads, blocking websites suspected of compromising your online safety, and blocking third-party trackers.

Browser and system requirements
Browser: The latest version of Safari
Operating system:
Sonoma 14
Ventura 13
Monterey 12

I have not tried this since I'm running Catalina and using Firefox as main web browser...

Installed Firefox add-ons: uBlock Origin, Kaspersky Protection, Malwarebytes Browser Guard
 
I've been using various ad blockers, including AdGuard, and recently started worrying about these extensions potentially degrading my browser's performance. To investigate further, I ran Safari benchmarks using Speedometer 3.0 with different ad blockers enabled and noticed that some of them can significantly reduce performance. As a result, I decided to remove all ad-blocking extensions and switched to using AdGuard's DNS ad blocker instead. However, the downside is that I can't use Private Relay with this setup. Now, I'm considering switching back to using Private Relay along with ad-blocking extensions, or possibly using a VPN that has DNS ad-blocking capabilities.

I Just posted this reply to another thread about ad blockers and then saw this thread.
 
MacMan988 said:
I've been using various ad blockers, including AdGuard, and recently started worrying about these extensions potentially degrading my browser's performance. To investigate further, I ran Safari benchmarks using Speedometer 3.0 with different ad blockers enabled and noticed that some of them can significantly reduce performance. As a result, I decided to remove all ad-blocking extensions and switched to using AdGuard's DNS ad blocker instead. However, the downside is that I can't use Private Relay with this setup. Now, I'm considering switching back to using Private Relay along with ad-blocking extensions, or possibly using a VPN that has DNS ad-blocking capabilities.

I Just posted this reply to another thread about ad blockers and then saw this thread.
Click to expand...
I had similar concerns, and this formula works very well for me:

1. Disabled all ad blockers
2. Enabled ProtonVPN NetShield (Block malware, ads & trackers option)
3. Use only Safari and native Safari features

This works great with private relay on 90%+ of sites and I simply stop accessing sites that break. Hope this helps.
 
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I've been using Little Snitch. The new version comes with 14 public block lists that you can selectively enable. You can also add the URL's of blocklists that are not predefined. This handles blocking for all browsers, mail, and other phone-home apps.
 
Has anyone else noticed that EweTube has backed off, a lot, on cramming ads in before their videos? Six months or so ago when they got really bad (multiple ads, no "Skip ad after 5 seconds", every fourth video is an ad, etc) I gleaned some info from this thread and ended up using Vinegar, Wipr and Swizztube (for EweTube) in tandem and that worked pretty good for me.
I would make it a point to go to EweTube and only click on the "Shorts" (which, so far, have no ads) and then, if I saw a full video I wanted to watch, I'd click on it, immediately get ads, and then quit EweTube altogether, and then watch that full video on Swizztube.
Apparently I wasn't the only person doing this, as EweTube has backed off quite a bit. Some channels I visit daily (Lincoln Project, Beau/Belle of the Fifth Column, Macmost, Food Wishes, some woodworking sites) no longer have any ads preceding them, and most others only have one ad that you can skip after 5 seconds (I can live with that). If any video has a non-skippable ad, or more than one, I will continue to just turn off EweTube and watch it via Swizztube instead.
Anyone else notice this?

(and a related chuckle: many ads that I "Skip after 5 seconds" don't get around to mentioning the product/service they're trying to sell in that first 5 seconds, so they're missing out on any name recognition whatsoever from people like me. If I wrote ads for a living I'd try to keep this in mind... :p )
 
ForkHandles said:
I love the selfish irony.

You’re all sharing details on how to block ads on one of your goto forums whose revenue, the cash that pays the writers, is derived mainly from advertising to its visitors.

Ads are there so content creators can get paid. If you don’t like the ads, don’t go to those websites.
Click to expand...

This is a simple take.

Really it's a supply and demand thing. They can't limit supply any more thanks to the Internet breaking the supply channel control for content. This devalued content to a healthy sum of $0 as there is an insane surplus of it so the only thing left is guilt, charity and cramming ads down your throat. The content is still worth $0. Of course you can't generate any $ without getting people << HERES A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR NORDVPN - GET OUR VPN OR YOUR EARS WILL FALL OFF AND YOUR MOTHER WILL RUN AWAY WITH THE NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR >> to look at your content so when the ads stop coming in because they are blocked, people still get the content. They could stop it but that would drastically reduce readership and ad revenue because a lot of stuff is shared by people who are blocking ads to people who do end up << HERES A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR NORDVPN - SPECIAL OFFER ONLY $9.99 A MONTH, ONE KIDNEY AND WE RETAIN THE RIGHT TO RESELL YOUR SOUL TO LARRY ELLISON >> slinging some money to patreon or accidentally clicking on a tasteless Ukrainian Widow Brides advert or something.

Wall to wall scum. They're getting blocked and I don't care. Also sod content creators (mind crappers) - I hope the model dies.
 
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