Hey everyone, I’ve recently gone back to using Safari as my main browser and I really like it, with the exception of being a little lost when it comes to the options for adblock extensions. I have Wipr, but I don’t love the lack of customization. The two I see mentioned most are Adguard and 1Blocker. If I were to pay for one premium service, which would you recommend? Edit: Should’ve mentioned that I’m speaking about macOS as opposed to iOS!
I’m a big fan of AdGuard as well, and the ability to customize what I block and what I don’t block is why I use it. It’s a sort of fire-and-forget application for me though. Once I had the basic lists that I knew to work for me setup and my upstream DNS set to NextDNS (or any adblocking DNS) it covered all of my use-cases. That said, Wipr tries really hard to balance removing ads without breaking stuff, and if it works I’d definitely recommend sticking with it. You can get almost the same effect of “system-wide” adblocking by just using a DNS server that blocks ads.
Yeah, I love AdGuard. There are definitely free options that are nearly as good, but I’m willing to pay for the huge amount of privacy related options they’ve added in over the years beyond just adblocking.
I think local AdGuard + network-wide DNS blocking (AdGuard Home/piHole/NextDNS) is the ultimate setup. This gets my PCs/Macs the more robust blocking from a local application, but also my phones/tablets/other devices get at least basic filtering and encrypted DNS just by being connected to the network. My AdGuard Home stats show me that 30-40% of all DNS queries in a 24h reporting period are blocked, which is just insanity. The majority of these are from mobile streaming apps on the tablets, and streaming boxes (Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV 4k) trying to phone home.
I have elderly parents who live with me and they’re as internet addicted as anyone else these days. For most of my natural life my mother has needed me to remove spyware/adware/infections on nearly a monthly basis (sometimes weekly!), but now that she’s here with me on my network we’ve never had a problem. These things are marketed on the basis that ads are annoying but the amount of badware they block is pretty essential too imo.