In case anyone here missed it, there's a native Ublock Origin for Safari. It works great → https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
In case anyone here missed it, there's a native Ublock Origin for Safari. It works great → https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
Mostly so, it's got all the limitations of Manifest V3 which prevents it from doing a good bit of blocking, https://ublockorigin.com/#manifest-v3-section
In particular:
* Cannot use all filter lists simultaneously (rule limits apply)
* No cosmetic filtering in the default mode
* No scriptlet injection by default
* Limited dynamic filtering capabilities
* Requires broader host permissions upfront
But it's definitely still better than no adblockers
Cosmetic filtering and script injection both work fine, they’re just off by default. Everybody works around rule count limits by making the one app register itself as like six different “Safari extensions”, it’s just clutter not a limitation. It requires no permissions up front and later permissions only granularly and rarely, for me only on YouTube, while the Firefox version does require unrestricted access to all domains. I have never seen a “dynamic filtering capability” it lacks or an ad it can’t block, do you have any examples?
> it's got all the limitations of Manifest V3 which prevents it from doing a good bit of blocking
The only mainstream browser left that can still run the full version of uBlock Origin is Firefox.
All the others have the same limitations imposed by Manifest V3.
iOS Firefox the same though.
Thanks Apple for inflicting the Safari monopoly to all iOS users.
Brave said they will be keeping its functionality.
Brave has certainly said a lot of good things while doing quite [0] a lot [1] of bad [2] things [3] that make me think it's mostly just marketing to lower-knowledge users that's carrying it forward. I see so many 'privacy' influencers that recommend it and Chromium, and then Firefox with no mention of FOSS options like LibreWolf, Tor Browser, IronFox, etc
[0] https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15790
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/privacy-browser-brave-busted-f...
[2] https://www.xda-developers.com/brave-browser-installs-vpn-wi...
[3] https://www.atlas.science/news/the-shady-world-of-brave-sell...
Yep, I don't trust Brave. A web browser holds so much power over your digital life that it cannot be entrusted to a company that consistently and egregiously compromises its ethics for profit. Most of these examples border on scam behaviour... par for the course for the cryptocurrency space!
For all their faults, Mozilla has never done anything that holds a candle to the kinds of stunts Brave keeps pulling.
Which is even more noteworthy because Brave is led by an ex-CEO and influential top exec of Mozilla's.
I wonder if he'd have done the same at Mozilla.
All valid.
I'm a Firefox user.
Depending on money from Google is worse than the aggregate of Brave behavior, for me.
Brave also has native rust based psudo reimplementation of ublock, so it also doesnt necessarily need the functionality to accomplish what most people end up needing it for.
Brave and Vivaldi built their own blockers, they aren’t addons.
Regarding the cosmetic filtering and scriptlet injection, are these even relevant? Most uBO users already give full access to the extension, so they'll probably do the same to uBOL to (most permissions + complete filtering mode). So basically they will have these features anyway.
What I like about uBO Lite in Safari is that I can use it without allowing it access to any of my data (it works in a purely declarative mode if you want). Even if it’s unlikely that uBO would be sold to a sketchy company, at least this provides protection against any supply chain attacks.
Yes, that was Google’s justification for killing MV2. It isn’t wrong, of course, but I insist on defining my own security posture and I prioritize adblocking.
FYI uBlock Origin Lite on iOS is inferior to AdGuard and (I think) Wipr as it's just a WebExtension, so it'll only block ads within Safari itself.
AdGuard and Wipr use both the Web Extension and Content Blocker APIs, so they'll block ads in all web views system wide on top of within Safari itself.
However as far as trustworthiness goes, uBlock is (imo) #1.
wBlock by an MIT student is open source and seems (just!) about as trustworthy as uBlock, though of course without the track record. Light & fast, especially to update.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wblock/id6746388723 / GH: https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlockOn AdGuard: can act as your PiHole and allow you to see network requests when run in non-native mode.
Nice, last time I heard about wblock felt like years ago and I'm not sure why I didn't consider it.
These days I don't run on-device adblock, I just do DNS filtering for the most part but I'll check it out, not sure I wanna keep tunneling all my DNS queries to ControlD perpetually lol
Just a comment on the narrative:
> wBlock by an MIT student is open source
It's funny to me that some find that narrative appealing.
Here's another narrative: Many of those MIT students go on to be SV founders and employees who build, operate, and make millions or billions from the mass surveillance and ad industry. And I'm sure some participated in FOSS in college - what better way to build your resume for the surveillance/ad industry?
(I'm not commenting on the wBlock developer; I think all such narratives are deceiving and should be ignored.)
The "narrative" above is that they're both made by seemingly well-intentioned solo developers, that's it. Use your own judgement for something that wants to inject JS into every website you visit.
Thanks for the link, I like it so far
No offense to the author, but I don't trust a college kid the same way I trust the team behind uBlock. The latter have a well-established track record with substantial external eyes (including Firefox directly.)
Age of author shouldn’t be of relevance. Experience and/or team size should.
A kid reading up on security from age 6 through college could have a decade of experience, for example.
Never heard of this but looks good to me. Nice to have another tool for the arsenal.
I think Wipr is also very trustworthy. It’s developed by an indie dev who’s responsive over email, and gives you a lot for free. And it has a $5/yr subscription (or one time payment) that unlocks system-wide ad blocking, not just in web views.
I’ve found it to work exceptionally well after trying other free adblockers.
Yeah my comment wasn't me trying to say they weren't trustworthy, I've actually purchased both AdGuard and Wipr but I stick with AdGuard since I felt like it was better. And the dev of Wipr seems to be transparent for sure.
However of the three I trust AdGuard the least, for no objective reasons.
FWIW AdGuard dev team is in Russia. Letting them proxy all your traffic is probably not the wisest move.
If you use the Safari adblocker, it will use rule lists, not proxy all traffic.
That said, IMO on Safari Wipr all the way (though I use Brave Origin with its built-in blocker now, which is stellar).
uBOL bug report: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/438 , from discussion https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/discussions/408#di...
I hope this changes, it’s what keeps me on AdGuard :-/I have been happy with my workaround for this issue which is using uBOL along side the AdGuard content blocker extensions (main AdGuard web extension disabled).
Also, if you use Orion Browser, they did implement the full Manifest v2 extension spec on top of WebKit, which lets you use full uBlock origin directly.
I try Orion periodically but always find it to be buggy
This is why I started using the Orion browser. It's not perfect, I've had a few freezes and occasional weird behavior but well within the "tolerable" range for me, and not noticably worse than the glitches that any ad blocker causes on some sites.
Does that really matter if virtually no one is going to develop extensions according to the Manifest v2 spec?
Developing for that spec means your extension is incompatible with idk, 98% of the browser market?
Well, uBlock will maintain support, and Orion also supports Manifest v3
This is not a true uBlock Origin. It's a best effort attempt at converting UBO rules to Apple's declarative blocking framework, but is nowhere near as capable as actual UBO.
Works well enough for me
Does it work on YouTube?
Yes, in practice I have noticed no difference between uBO and uBOL. The only thing I've seen it not block are Twtich ads which the normal uBO doesn't block anyway.
There are probably additional things behind the scenes just due to the limitations of uBOL but you again in practice don't see it.
> It's a best effort attempt at converting UBO rules to Apple's declarative blocking framework
uBlock Origin Lite uses the cross-platform DeclarativeNetRequest extension API: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtens...
Google invented this API for Chrome, and the other web browsers are adopting it. uBlock Origin Lite does not use Apple's content blocker API.