I’m seeing plenty of ads for these, and am certainly getting frustrated by the number and intrusiveness of adverts on many news sites I frequent.
I’m wary of some of the claims, so keen to understand how they work (and why this isn’t already built into the iphone)? I don’t mind a modest annual subscription if I’m getting quality - say $25.
Any other considerations?
uBlock Origin works with Chrome, Chromium, MS Edge, Opera, Pale Moon, Firefox and all Safari releases prior to 13. That just blocks them at the browser level, supplementing any DNS- or IP-based blocking.
How does that install to an iPhone?
I’ve been using 1Blocker on my iPad and it works pretty well blocking ads in Safari. I use the free version, and it’s never nagged me about anything. You can pay to have it block more things, but just blocking ads is good enough for me.
This is what I would recommend:
You can even do the second half (add Adguard as your DNS filter) without paying or installing anything. That’s what I do on Android.
This may not block everything in your webbrowser, though. Most people seem to recommend installing the Brave Web Browser, which has built in adblock.
If you have any of the supported browsers (e.g., Firefox), it is installed as an in-browser extension, not as a separate app.
I thought all browsers on an iPhone are actually just Safari with different skins. Is that not true anymore? Does Safari allow extensions like uBlock?
uBlock explicitly does not promise it will work with new versions of Safari.
I know you an install Firefox, but I don’t know if it’s an independent browser, or if it’s just a reskin of Safari. On Android, different browsers are all different, not just different front ends to Chrome. It used to be the case that, on iOS, different browsers were all Safari with different skins (and, I guess with the ability to move bookmarks over or something from your other Firefox browsers). Is that still the case?
I understand the question; I only have maybe an old iphone 5 or 6 lying around so cannot really test this properly atm. There is actual Mozilla code on Github, though, that seems to be more than merely a skin:
ETA it does suspiciously include calls to the Apple Webkit engine, though, use of which does appear to be an apple App Store requirement: “Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.” So maybe calling Firefox-for-iOS a reskin of Safari is not inaccurate.
I use the DuckDuckGo browser for iOS. Blocks ads automatically by itself, no add-ons necessary. It’s fine as a basic browser. Often things like QR codes don’t work properly as they are usually configured to work with browsers that aren’t DDG, but otherwise I have no complaints about it.
That also implies the regular uBlock Origin extension may not work (for the same reasons as for Safari), but Firefox does appear to do this blocking by itself via the WebKit API:
I use (and subscribe) to 1Blocker. It’s worth the price to me.
I forget which features are paid and which are free, but besides the page-level blocking, there is also a VPN blocker. The VPN blocker redirects all internet access on the phone through a local VPN (that is, running on your iPhone, not some remote computer). It prevents the phone from accessing a bunch of malicious and suspicious IP addresses. Not just the browsers, but all apps on the phone.
I’ve not tested those extensively, because I use a normal external VPN frequently, and as far as I know, I can’t use both the internal and external ones.
I also route my DNS through an external host which blocks known ad sites.
Thanks for that recommendation (and to Pleonast in another reply) - I think I’ll likely go with this and see what difference the free version makes.
AdBlock Pro, AdGuard and 1Blocker all work well enough for me for the free versions. You can install all 3 and just switch between them for the best results. Or you can even use all three at the same time, although it might slow down the page load time.
Right now, all iOS browsers have to be based on the WebKit engine. I don’t think that makes other browsers just skins of Safari, but I wouldn’t argue against it either. The current rumor, however, is that thanks to antitrust pressure and new laws in Europe, Apple will begin to allow other engines starting with the release of iOS 17 later this year. It’s also been reported that both Google and Mozilla are already working on browsers that use their own rendering engines, so it could be close to happening.