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!

  •  polygon   ( @polygon@beehaw.org ) 
    11•1 year ago

    Personally I find AdGuard (not to be confused with AdGuard Home, they are different products) to be the best adblocker out there, both for MacOS and iOS. What’s great about it on MacOS is that it’s not a browser plugin, it’s an application that runs on the Mac itself. This means you can add any app you want to be filtered, not just the browser. I use a messenger app that likes to show ads. I added it to AdGuards filter and now it’s clean.

    Also with all the changes that are potentially coming to browsers (chromium) not allowing adblocking this is a future proof solution because again, it’s running at the OS level and not inside the browser. It doesn’t matter if Google tries to stop you from blocking ads because it’s all done externally from the browser where they have no control.

    You can add a bunch of other features as well like advanced stealth which randomizes your browser fingerprint, helps to avoid deep packet inspection by your ISP, encrypted DNS, encrypted Client Hello (in beta currently)… it’s really the whole package. I feel like it’s worth paying for because it does much much more than a simple adblock browser extension.

    •  tattooed_dude   ( @tattooed_dude@lemmy.world ) OP
      3•1 year ago

      Also with all the changes that are potentially coming to browsers (chromium) not allowing adblocking this is a future proof solution

      A big reason why I’m going ahead and trying to make the switch now. I appreciate your detailed response!

  •  degrix   ( @degrix@lemmy.world ) 
    5•1 year ago

    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.

    •  polygon   ( @polygon@beehaw.org ) 
      2•1 year ago

      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.

  •  thehatfox   ( @thehatfox@lemmy.world ) 
    4•1 year ago

    I’m using Wipr, haven’t had any issues with it really. The only downside is it can’t block YouTube ads, but I think that’s a limitation of all Safari content blockers.

    I also use Firefox with uBlock Origin for the sites Safari can’t handle.

    What is it exactly that you want to customise?

    •  tattooed_dude   ( @tattooed_dude@lemmy.world ) OP
      2•1 year ago

      Being able to pick and choose which filters are on/off, or being able to add custom rules are a couple that come to mind. I do have Firefox with uBlock as well, and maybe this is naive, but I’d like to just have 1 browser that can handle everything as opposed to having to pick and choose. Firefox has been that 1 browser for me for a long time, but I really love the little things about Safari like entering my two factor codes for me. Ultimately doing all this for fun though, and if it doesn’t work out I know I can fall back on Firefox + uBlock.

      •  mbirth   ( @mbirth@lemmy.mbirth.uk ) English
        1•1 year ago

        I never had the urge to modify my uBlock (well, AdNauseam) filters after the initial setup and I’ve never needed to adjust Wipr. You can turn off content blockers (=Wipr) for complete websites where you want the author to get money for ad impressions.

  •  joneskind   ( @joneskind@lemmy.world ) 
    4•1 year ago

    This question keeps popping a lot these days.

    I switched from AdGuard to Ghostery.

    It’s super light, and has built-in Never Consent to CMP in Europe that also have the side effect to prevent advertisers to display ads (because the consent status is unknown, as if the website itself had no CMP manager, which scare the shit out of advertisers)

    I also bought Vinegar to kill every single ad on YouTube, simply by replacing YT player with the HTML5 one. And even Google can’t do shit against that.

  •  oxy   ( @oxy@sh.itjust.works ) 
    2•1 year ago

    I don’t have a Mac (yet!), but I’ve been researching apps a lot lately and there’s this rather new browser with a built in ad-and-tracker blocker called orion in open beta
    Alas it isn’t open source, but it is free, based on WebKit, and even supports extensions from both Firefox and Chrome

  •  grimer   ( @grimer@lemmy.world ) 
    2•1 year ago

    I’ve been using Safari as my main browser on mac for a LONG time then on a whim i decided to check out Brave. It kills ads for me SO much better and even scores incredibly well with EFF’s https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ . I do run uBlock Origin with it and I can go to damn near any site including Youtube with no ads at all. Maybe I’m missing something but so far it’s working too well for me to switch to anything else.

  •  tattooed_dude   ( @tattooed_dude@lemmy.world ) OP
    2•1 year ago

    After reading through some posts on the MacRumors Forums, as well as your comments, I’m going to stick with Wipr for the time being. I think I just wasn’t using it properly, but now that I’ve educated myself on it a little bit more (who knew, huh?), it should work fine for my liking. (P.S. I wouldn’t normally make a post like this, but in an effort to be more active here on Lemmy, I figured why not?)

  •  Wooster   ( @Wooster@startrek.website ) 
    2•1 year ago

    I’m a fan of a multi-tiered approach.

    For system wide, I update/replace my etc/hosts file with the one generated here. The advantage is that this blocks ads system wide—not just in Safari. They simply cannot load at all on your computer. It’s free, but updates have to be preformed manually.

    Next, VPNs often add an additional layer of protection. Apple offers one with iCloud subscriptions, but I’m also fond of Lockdown

    And then finally for an actual Safari extension, I use 1Blocker, which I guess actually answers your question.