41 ms·

Explanation of the state of uBlock Origin and other blockers for Safari

645 points by n1000 7y ago

marmada 7y ago
I don't understand why this is a good thing. As a user, I can make my own choices on what type of as blocking technology I want to use. I'm sure most people on HN would support legalization of marijuana even though it is arguable that smoking marijuana is bad for you. Same thing applies here, I should be able to choose what ad blocking technology I want to use.
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  > I can make my own choices on what type of as blocking technology I want to use True, safari may not be for you then (it's not for me either). But for many people, especially those who don't understand how to get good privacy online, safari takes that guesswork out of the process. Apple applies similar logic to other security related choices they make for users too. It's not for everyone, but it is arguably good for many.
- forgottenpass 7y ago
  If prohibition had Apple's marketing behind it, a huge number of people would suddenly get onboard. Paternalism from software companies is popular these days.
sooheon 7y ago
I've found Ka-block! to work well enough that I'm happy waiting until a clear winner between 1Blocker and AdGuard emerges. OTOH, the bigger annoyance has been the fact that none of the vi key extensions for Safari seem to work anymore.
protomyth 7y ago
Let me get this straight, because Apple is worried I might leak private information to the Extension Developer, they came up with a new "content blocking" scheme that is not as capable so now my risk has increased for every website I visit? I think I would like to take my chances with the Extension Developer.
jokoon 7y ago
I'm starting to hate the internet
eduardo2002 7y ago
Wow
jkp56 7y ago
Everybody misses the point. The declarative API takes control away from the user. Currently you can block everything except the useful content. With the declarative API you can block only trackers A, B and C, but not C and D, because C and D weren't added to the global list of trackers. Moreover, you won't even know that C and D exist. With the declarative api, trackers get a trivial way to bypass adblocking: they can just change the domain name. This is the true goal of declarative API, not performance or security. Why does the declarative API still allow to monitor your traffic? This sort of contradicts the security selling point, right? Because corporate users need to monitor activity of their employees: they install a corp extension that monitors traffic. They don't need to block anything, but they need the monitoring ability. The argument that adblockers can route all your traffic thru their servers simply doesn't stand. If this was a concern, the browser could refine the permissions model: an extension can monitor and block any traffic, but it doesn't have access to the internet. Just like in Android you can uncheck the camera and mic permissions for any app. Problem solved.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  If you could declare a sufficiently advanced Lua script, that would negate all incompatibilities while still allowing complex blockers to function. Why hasn’t the blocker community proposed such yet? It seems like it’s the missing piece: How little scripting capabilities are necessary, etc. If you had MATCH expressions, CASE statements, and $1/$2/... capturing backreferences, would any of this even be a problem?
  - jkp56 7y ago
    I don't understand your point. It doesn't matter what the language is: JS, Lua, Python, C++ or even Rust. What matters is the API the extension has access to: tab URLs, web requests, storage, network, DOM read only or read write. Just like in mobile apps: it doesn't matter what language it's written in. It only matters what system apis it has access to.
blacklight86 7y ago
Time to start avoiding any browser that limits the power of extensions. Browsing the web today has become a dirty business, it's easy to be tracked, and users have the freaking right to defend their privacy when browsing, and to do it in whichever way they like. I'm tired of these paternalistic and uningenuous claims from Google and Apple that sound like "but we do it for you, you know, adblockers really hurt the performance of your browser". Something hurts my browsing experience? Well, it should be my call whether the pros outsize the cons or not, it should my call whether to use it or not, not the browser's developer call. After all, the web browsing experience today is way more compromised because of the huge amount of third-party scripts that run on most of the pages, surely not by extensions, but browser producers don't seem to put the same emphasis on the need of reducing the use of third-party scripts and trackers. To me decisions like blocking external web API calls in extensions just because "they may slow down your browser or put your security at risk" sound like if the Linux kernel suddenly decided to disable the support for network sockets because "you know, hackers might use them for backdoors, or you might end up connecting to an extremely slow server and hurt your experience": a complete nonsense bullshit. Plus, browsers like Brave have recently proved, with its native content blocker developed in Rust, that it's still possible to use a traditional adblocker without compromising the browsing experience. Time to uninstall Chrome. Time to uninstall Safari. Time to ditch away all the browsers that do their best to limit your freedom on how you surf the web. Extensions are among the foundations of a modern browser, and limiting their power to static lists of rules is an immoral decision that deserves a serious boycot act from users.
untitled87 7y ago
Safari is the new Chrome
RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
This is a serious impending problem for Safari users. The web has become nearly unusable without a high-quality, uncompromised ad blocker like uBO.
- dmortin 7y ago
  I use a blocker too, but the problem is if everyone starts blocking ads then the current free internet cannot be sustained as it is today. We'll have to move to a paid model, which won't be cheap if you choose to visit many sites, like today, and also the clearing entity will know about what sites you browse. It can't be anonymous, because in case of a dispute it has to be known who paid for what.
  - chopin 7y ago
    Serve un-obstrusive first party ads. I have no problem with that. Otherwise, go and die.
    - Jonnax 7y ago
      So only the websites that are big enough to make deals with specific advertisers are allowed to make money on the internet?
      - iamnotacrook 7y ago
        Did local newspapers have a problem "making deals with specific advertisers"? I mean, if that's the business you're in, better get on it, right?
      - chopin 7y ago
        So you're only allowed to sell stuff nationwide if you're big enough? Oh wait, there's EBay... I am sure solutions for this will spring up if need be. There's money involved, after all. Edit to add: These solutions will not be as convenient as the current state of affairs, I contest that.
mukundmr 7y ago
There are ways to make AdBlockers work with Safari 13. It is a question of someone taking the effort to adhere to the new design enforced by Apple for Safari extensions. I switched to AdGuard from uBlock Origin.
- zerealshadowban 7y ago
  I've made the same switch to AdGuard after upgrading to Safari 13, happy so far. (I've loved uBlock Origin for many years.)
a012 7y ago
I didn't know this first but spent awhile after installed Safari 13 and noticed uBO wasn't there anymore and spent time searching for alternative options and valuating those mentioned in the post but decided I'll go with FF and only use Safari with some websites those I'm working with them.
- vuln 7y ago
  I started downloading the update while read another thread. I immediately cut off the WiFi and stopped the download. I also downloaded Firefox to check it out and it seems pretty good.
_Understated_ 7y ago
This is not good! I thought Apple were way out in front when it came to tracking and whatnot... My wife uses a MAC at home and was complaining about how slow our internet was (70Mb down... not slow) a while back. She mainly looks at news sites and when I saw what she was looking at I knew the problem wasn't the internet connection. The entire page, apart from a tiny bit in the middle, was cluttered with moving shit! I installed uBlock Origin and... the result was fantastic: pages loaded in a fraction of the time. When she realised that the articles were a tiny proportion of the downloaded crap she realised she'd been missing out for so long. Once, when the MAC went back for repair, it was replaced with a new one and OMG the horror when she fired up Safari and it had no blocker... UBlock Origin to the rescue. I agree with one of the other comments on here: The web is utterly unusable without it.
- kstrauser 7y ago
  Apple isn't ending ad blockers. They're ending the specific API that uBlock Origin uses. For instance, I use 1Blocker on Mac and iOS and it does a great job of blocking ads using the still-supported APIs.
- ChrisLTD 7y ago
  Apple is trying to thread the needle. They want to allow content blocking, but they do not want to allow content blocking plugins to see and potentially report on what sites you visit. Personally, I’m totally cool with the trade-off of having less capable ad blocking functionality, if I can be sure my web plugins aren’t a security or privacy risk.
  - deftturtle 7y ago
    I don’t see why Safari can’t block extensions from sending data to remote servers. Seems like a pretty basic thing, so we have more powerful tools and not the privacy risks
    - om2 7y ago
      Preventing exfiltration by a tool that's by definition allowed to affect outgoing network traffic via blocking is an impossible problem.
lmedinas 7y ago
Well i have no complains about Safari but their Extension system is really costing them users. At this point I uBlock Origin is by far the most reliable AdBlocker you can find and my having the developers explaining that in the future maybe only Firefox will support it it's kinda of sad. Of course we know that Google has to make money from Ads so its understandable but what about Apple ? They are putting heavy focus in privacy, would it be good if they open their browser to make sure their users will not move to Chrome/Firefox or other browser ?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I don’t see any ads with Firefox focus/1 blocker as my content blocker.
- kache_ 7y ago
  The day ublock origin doesn't work on chrome is the day users will flock to firefox. We have seen time and time again that users aren't afraid of switching browsers. This is because since their core functionality is so similar, small advantages will tip the scales.
  - blablabla123 7y ago
    Exactly, especially for people who don't do web development the difference is hardly there. Actually I recently started to prefer Safari, despite its less smoother Tab UX but this was enough reason to make me switch to Firefox (Nightly). I'm also surprised that it seems to start faster than Safari.
  - hans1729 7y ago
    As a chrome-user: this. Firefox lost me years ago due to performance differences, and since chrome works fine for me, there was no ux-related reason to switch back. The day I'll see ads everywhere will be the day I'm back to firefox, and without second thoughts at that. If I really like your service, I'll happily pay for it. I hate ads, the psychological strats behind them are completely unacceptable. I'd happily pay google a subscription-rate, if that's what it takes tbh. Take my money, not my attention.
rubyfan 7y ago
I’ve been using the MacOS Beta for a while and lack of uBlock Origin has made browsing terrible again. Ads everywhere now and I had forgotten how bad it was. Firefox has gotten pretty good now, the only problem is no integration with Keychain which is a serious downside. On iOS I use Safari but with BlockBear and Firefox Focus as content blockers. So my experience there is pretty good. iCloud Keychain makes my password situation a lot better going between iOS and MacOS... I’m not sure I can achieve the same using Firefox right now.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Firefox has gotten pretty good now But it burns through the battery!
  - mpranjic 7y ago
    I'm not a Mac owner, but apparently it got better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20874139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20874139
  - DCKing 7y ago
    That is true currently. Know that this problem will be strongly reduced in the next version of Firefox, to be released on October 22nd. Firefox will use much less power then, on par with Chrome (haven't seen direct comparisons to Safari). Unfortunately by the time it's released Catalina will be out for a month already.
- joaobeno 7y ago
  Did you try the Firefox Account? I use Firefox on desktop, android and iOS, and sync my passwords with no problem.
  - rubyfan 7y ago
    Can you sync passwords between Firefox and Keychain? I’m essentially looking for that. I use iOS apps which leverage Keychain which can share passwords with both app and website. I’d ideally like to not have multiple password tools.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
simias 7y ago
It's interesting that Google and Apple seem to be converging on this issue (ad-blocking extensions) even though they're probably coming from two different directions. Google probably wants to discourage ad-blocking because it's a threat to their business model. Apple just dislikes not having full control on what the users run (and sometimes for good reasons, they probably want to avoid malware extensions). Still, in the end they both end up with subpar ad blocking facilities as a result. Firefox really needs to become a worthy competitor once again. And no I don't consider forks of Chromium to be reasonable alternatives in the long term, at least until those teams prove that they can maintain a deep fork of the browser on their own which will be necessary if they need to maintain functionality that Google removes from upstream.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Isn't Firefox a fork of chromium? Same as Brave?
  - earenndil 7y ago
    No. Firefox has always been separate; it has its roots in netscape navigator, while chromium dates to KHTML.
  - loeg 7y ago
    Firefox preexists Chrome by like, six years (2002, 2008). Firefox stems from Mozilla (1998) stems from Netscape Navigator (1994, originally). Chrome stems from Blink stems from Webkit (Apple's thing, 2001ish) stems from KHTML (KDE, 1998). Amusingly, all the historical parts of the Chrome stack are basically still around. You can install recent versions of Safari and use Webkit, or install recent versions of Konqueror and browse the web with KHTML (although development has lagged since 2016).
- _frkl 7y ago
  You don't think Firefox is a worthy competitor at the moment? I've used it quite happily in the last few years, but would be interested in what you think its shortcomings are. I know there is supposed to be a power drain issue, but I haven't noticed that personally. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any major issues.
yladiz 7y ago
It was asked in the Github comments on this issue, but I want to clarify for myself: is the main difference between "content blockers" and "ad blocker" that works like uBlock Origin the way that they handle blocking content? What are the downsides to the content blocking plugin model?
- tbrock 7y ago
  In my limited understanding content blockers seem more sane as they doesn’t give the extension cart blanche to read your pages and write to the DOM. Instead it passes links to content the browser wants to load into the content blocker as a filter function. The seems very sensible given extension owners could start injecting malicious content on the page. Nothing prevents them from selling out — it’s happened before. I use uBlock origin and love it in Chrome but I can also see where Apple is coming from here. This will probably protect the greatest number of their users.
  - roblabla 7y ago
    The way adblocks like UBo works isn't by injecting stuff in the DOM. Instead, they look at requests going out, and can ask the browser to "fail" it. It can do that based on custom logic - a piece of javascript code runs for every requests. UBO also has the facility to delete/hide arbitrary nodes from the DOM in order to hide ads that might come bundled with the page. None of those functionalities can really be used maliciously. At best you can break websites by denying them the ability to load stuff. The problem is that both functionality are bundled with other privacy-invading things (like injecting or reading). But that's of no fault of UBO, it's just the way Safari and Chrome decided to set the permission granularity. You could have a secure, restrictive API without blocking the best features of UBO. Google chose not to because it's potentially damaging their business model, and Apple probably chose not to out of simplicity.
    - sigotirandolas 7y ago
      I think that this, i.e. with request and element filtering, is how it works the majority of the time. However, uBlock Origin can (and sometimes does) inject arbitrary scripts into the page. They can it "scriptlets", see this link: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#scriptlet-injection https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#... . You can see some usages in the "uBlock Filters" filter list included with uBlock Origin. I think it's more the exception rather than the norm, but it's there. My fear is that if extensions are crippled and mainstream ad-blocking standardizes on those kinds of restricted "content blockers", it's possible for ad companies to implement an effective technical bypass for them, since they can execute arbitrary scripts, but "content blockers" can't, unlike extensions. You would need Apple/Google/etc. to play the ad-blocking arms race, and they probably won't have incentives for it.
halostatue 7y ago
I have used Better (https://better.fyi https://better.fyi) on the Mac since the content blocker system was introduced and have never had a problem.
leemailll 7y ago
As it mentioned, it will not work in future release of safari and chrome. So only choice will be Firefox on Mac?
- pedrocx486 7y ago
  If Chrome/ium forks decide to maintain the needed APIs they will still support it. There's also Brave. In the meantime I'm with the new Edge (forked from Chromium) in hopes MS won't be stupid.
DCKing 7y ago
I like using Safari and uBlock Origin. I notice that I am not a power user of browsers - give tabs, a forward and backward button and any adblocker and I used to be happy. This mean that I could easily use Safari and Firefox - I prefer not to use Chrome derivatives to do my part in preventing developers from forgetting about other browsers. However, I have recently become a power user of uBlock Origin specifically to curtail the general attention hacking on the web. uBlock Origin is already a very great ad blocker in its default installation, but I've recently got into using its powerful cosmetic filters to block out "attention hacking features", such as (all of) YouTube's recommendations, comments on various sites, and stuff like the "Hot Network Questions" on StackOverflow. Things I've discovered that are too good at distracting my mind. With a few uBlock Origin cosmetic filter rules, those website elements remain hidden when I visit them. I wonder if it's possible to continue using Safari with my own distraction filters. It's a shame if I have to stop using it.
- rurp 7y ago
  I really like the idea of using uBlock Origin to block distractions. I've used it quite a bit to block minor annoying website features like sticky menus or marketing popups. I might start using it more extensively to block actual content.
- twostoned 7y ago
  I need to block attention hacking features also, have been thinking about this recently. Stupid youtube.
  - DCKing 7y ago
    In uBlock Origin settings > My filters, paste the following rules to turn YouTube in just a search bar + video player: youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype='home'] youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer youtube.com##app-drawer youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-comments youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer youtube.com##ytd-mini-guide-renderer youtube.com##ytd-topbar-menu-button-renderer youtube.com###buttons.ytd-masthead youtube.com##yt-icon-button youtube.com##.ytp-endscreen-content Note this is only accurate at the time of writing, only works partially on mobile, and may break some edge cases I don't use :) [1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax
happybuy 7y ago
There are plenty of good ad blocker alternatives available for Safari on macOS and iOS. I’ve created one that is updated regularly, has a free option, respects your privacy and doesn’t take any $ from advertisers to let ads through the ad block rules [1]. Simply search on the App Store for a variety of alternatives. uBlock Origin is good but it’s not the be all and end all of ad blocking especially on Apple platforms. [1] More details at https://www.magiclasso.co/ https://www.magiclasso.co/
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  You've got pretty bad reviews, mostly because you seem to hide essential features behind a paywall. I can't tell which features those are because your site is not really transparent about that either, probably in a weird attempt to hook whoever is reading it on the bold "free" part of the page. Not great.
  - ihuman 7y ago
    The website is pretty transparent about what is paid. The features page has some features listed as part of the "pro" subscription. It seems that the only paid additions are automated rule updates, a whitelist, and early access to new features. https://www.magiclasso.co/#features https://www.magiclasso.co/#features
oedmarap 7y ago
A while ago I uninstalled uBO/PrivacyBadger and switched to using a combination of NextDNS [0] and Brave for daily driving (Firefox for work because FF containers) and the adblocking + browsing experience has been nothing short of stellar. NextDNS takes the load off outside the network perimeter and concatenates all the many lists and trackers in one dashboard. I'm free to use other gentler add-ons in the browser if I so desire, rather than have the DOM split apart and my local machine do all the heavy lifting. The best thing about using DNS-level blocking is that it's an elegant solution across all my devices, especially when paired with a VPN that enforces those resolvers. [0] https://nextdns.io https://nextdns.io
- viraptor 7y ago
  Where that fails though is exceptions. Do you want to block ads, but follow that one link you're really interested in? Sorry, it redirects via a doubleclick site and you can't allow just that one entry. You also need to leave your browser environment to find and unblock it.
  - dspillett 7y ago
    That irritated me once or twice at first, after setting PiHole to implement DNS based ad blocking at the network level. It hasn't bothered me long term though. If that happens and I care enough about what made me follow the link then a quick search has always brought up another route to that content or equivalent content. Often I don't care even that much in which case I click the back button or close the tab and get on with something else. In fact this "problem" might be saving me wasted time that I can use/waste elsewhere. It might even be saving money by reducing impulse purchases, if the links are ones I've followed to see what the sales pitch is for a product/service that has been mentioned in an article!
    - viraptor 7y ago
      For me it's the opposite. Not being able to bypass that doubleclick block would mean that I lose the deal I'm trying to get and would lose money on something I'm actually planning to pay for.
WA 7y ago
I use AdGuard on iOS and you can use very similar block lists as uBlock Origin for macOS does. Besides ads, I block social media on third party sites. This kind of tracking is just outright evil. I'll give it on macOS a try, because the other day, I noticed that uBlock Origin didn't detect one specific tracking URL, but Firefox did (and it clearly was in the network tab of the Safari developer tools). Now it's clear why: uBO is outdated for Safari. Anyways, thanks for the port and maintenance all those years when I could use uBO!
- saagarjha 7y ago
  That’s surprising, as I’m sure even an outdated uBlock Origin should fetch an up-to-date EasyList.
  - WA 7y ago
    I thought so too, but the version number was the only difference. If I find the link again, I can post it here.
Someone 7y ago
So, if I understand things correctly, the change is from “browser passes URL to blocker, blocker runs arbitrary code to decide whether to block it” to “blocker passes description of URLs to block to browser, browser runs code”? In the (somewhat) analogous case of antivirus tools, that change is from using heuristics to detect viruses to using fingerprints. I’m not sure that makes much of a difference there (but possibly I’m wrong) Also, the risk here is lower, so not taking the risk to run arbitrary code in exchange for somewhat better ad blocking may be the better choice. So, what are real-life examples that the uBlock Origin currently blocks that new blockers won’t be able to block?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Miraste 7y ago
  Safari now only allows up to 50k blocked elements. If there are more than 50k things you wish to block (my lists currently have >200k and uBlock Origin by default is over 100k), Safari won't let you.
  - kstrauser 7y ago
    That's not true. Safari only allows 50K elements per list, but an app can (and some do) have multiple lists.
  - djrogers 7y ago
    That’s 50k per list - many blockers (like 1Blocker) simply have different lists for each category of blocked elements. Works well.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    uBlock Origin filters can be compressed a bit, FWIW. I’m not sure yet if it’s enough to get it to fit in the 50k limit.
twsted 7y ago
I've seen that now Little Snitch (4) has the possibility to load community's blocklists. Any feedback on this?
- jen729w 7y ago
  I use this with Peter Lowe’s blocklist [0]. I’d share the exact setup but I’m not near my Mac just now. It’s great, but I also use 1Blocker — have since its release, also use it on iOS — and I think it does most of the work. I’ve only recently added the blocklist to Little Snitch and I don’t notice much difference. Of course Little Snitch is blocking all network traffic, including Firefox. I use Firefox as my dev browser and don’t have any blocking extensions loaded. It’s in the category of ‘why not’ for me, I already have Little Snitch so I may as well load in these rules. [0]: https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/
zw 7y ago
This is a mind-boggling level of FUD. Content blockers have been noticeably superior on both macOS and iOS for years. They’re not “limited”, they’re rational. It’s abjectly absurd that traditional ad blockers can consume as much CPU as they do on every single page load. I hope everyone in this thread jumping ship to Firefox in a panic enjoys their shorter battery life.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Disagreed. Content blockers are "dumb" as they just provide a list of URLs/regexes to block, which doesn't always work and doesn't allow behaviour-based blocking like "dynamic filtering" that some Javascript-based adblockers have. Sure, it's technically possible for a JS blocker to use more CPU, but 1) it's a trade-off the user should be allowed to make (I'm happy to sacrifice some CPU in exchange for better ad blocking and privacy) and 2) I never had a case where a JS-based blocker noticeably impacted performance.
- Varriount 7y ago
  Aside from battery life, how are the current alternatives for Safari better than uBlock?
- lightedman 7y ago
  "I hope everyone in this thread jumping ship to Firefox in a panic enjoys their shorter battery life." 10 hours on my Chromebook using FireFox Focus and uBO vs 7 hours using Chrome. Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?
- Mehvix 7y ago
  Users should have the choice as to what method of adlbocking they want to use.
OnlyRepliesToBS 7y ago
ruinous
Zelphyr 7y ago
There is a lot of confusion around this issue. Some people are taking this to mean that Safari has completely banned ad blockers, which isn't the case. Instead they've switched to a model that matches what they've been doing on iOS which is content blocking[1]. Content blockers give Safari a list of triggers and actions to take when something matches a trigger. For example; you can have a trigger which contains a regex that matches all images and stylesheets for a given domain. The action can be one of several options, one of which is to block that item. One advantage this technique provides over ad blocking is that there's no data to be phoned back home. It is, in essence, a mask that is applied to a web page before rendering. Also, it's very lightweight. It's literally just a JSON document which means Safari can perform better. Now, I'll admit it's not foolproof. Apple and the content blockers have some work to do on it. I'm noticing some issues with it myself after having upgraded to Safari 13. But from a privacy perspective, I personally much prefer this technique. 1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/creating_a_content_blocker https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...
- littlestymaar 7y ago
  > One advantage this technique provides over ad blocking is that there's no data to be phoned back home. […] But from a privacy perspective, I personally much prefer this technique. Are you suggesting uBO is sending data “back home”? It doesn't, and this comment is borderline FUD.
  - dmix 7y ago
    If only everyone used uBlock instead of the countless other scammy adblockers with millions of active users, which do not take privacy nearly as seriously. OP also never mentioned uBlock specifically, so I wouldn't be so quick to call it FUD. Whether or not this is a sufficient solution is one thing, but there are some legitimate problems with the current state of adblocking. Being able to provide a similar solution in a far more limited fashion would be a good thing for users.
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    They never suggested anything of the sort. That being said, for every uBO that doesn't send that data back home, there are 1000s of "ad-blockers" that do exactly that.
jedberg 7y ago
FWIW, I've been on Catalina for a couple of months now, which means no uBlock, and the web has been pretty usable. Safari alone seems to be doing a pretty good job with isolating the worst ads. That being said, this post reminded me to install a replacement, so I just installed Adguard. We'll see how it goes.
- lethologica 7y ago
  Are you not concerned by the permissions Adguard requires?
  - jedberg 7y ago
    No because Safari is my “web browser”. It’s the one I use for HN/Reddit etc. Anything I’d consider “private” like email or banking or even GitHub is done with FireFox or Chrome. Also I didn’t see anything flagrantly bad at first glance. Edit: Looking closer you may be referring to the old extension and not the new “content blocker” version, which is sandboxed by Safari and didn’t need to ask for any permissions.
  - 3JPLW 7y ago
    I installed Adguard myself after reading this post — it appears as though they've split the functionality into many extensions, and only a few require full-page access. I'm trying it without those "advanced" extensions enabled and it seems to be doing just fine.
jmnicolas 7y ago
I find a bit strange that he didn't think of Pihole as one of the alternative. https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/
- GuB-42 7y ago
  There is an overlap in features but these are different, and possibly complementary things. Pyhole vs uBlockOrigin: - is hardware based - works on a global scale, including the browser, apps, and the OS itself - can only block domains, not full URLs - doesn't have cosmetic filters - works at home, not really on the go. there is a VPN, but it still uses your home connection The intermediate solution would be hosts-based blocking.
PStamatiou 7y ago
For those looking for a related alternative/supplement.. consider a privacy DNS solution. I've really been liking NextDNS lately. Lets you customize a ton of stuff: It launched on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687 https://nextdns.io https://nextdns.io
- plopz 7y ago
  Isn't the main issue with DNS blocking the same as this "content blocking", i.e. it cant work for things like blocking Twitch's SureStream ads? Interestingly I found this while looking around for the answer: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/5184#issuecomment-475864036 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/5184#issuecom...
hackworks 7y ago
I went through the process of tearing away from Chrome. I only aspect that was holding me back was my stored passwords in Chrome and shared seamlessly with Android password manager. Exported the passwords and imported it into Enpass. That was the first step in liberation. I then decided to keep my personal and work related browsing separate especially since both require a google account (Gsuite at work). I wanted an ability to open the browser of my choice based on the URL I click and work anywhere on MacOS. I implemented a simple URL handler that I register as default browser and that opens the clicked URL in appropriate browser: https://github.com/hackworks/chromer https://github.com/hackworks/chromer It is not a very polished implementation but has been working reliably so far. With that, I am now able to switch between any browser without any lock in.
- mfcl 7y ago
  Have you looked into Firefox Containers for separating your personal and work accounts?
  - rcarmo 7y ago
    Another vote for Firefox Containers here. I do use Safari for my personal stuff, but Firefox Containers is _extremely_ useful when you work with multiple clients and have to switch between contexts for the same site (in my case the Azure portal and various e-mail accounts). One container per customer, and it's all neat and tidy.
kgwxd 7y ago
Apple's goal is not hackability, it's to provide a safe environment for users to generate revenue. It's Dave & Buster's. That was the idea for mobile from day one. They did a great job out of the gate and they're getting better at it every year. They've had to work backwards in desktop because people used to expect full-control of those machines, but they're slowly bringing users around. If you want to practice self-defense and weaponry, don't do it at Dave & Buster's.
bberenberg 7y ago
Does anyone have a local proxy that can do this instead? I am aware of GlimmerBlocker, but would love to hear broader feedback on the topic.
- proaralyst 7y ago
  There's pi-hole but it's only a DNS blocker
wdr1 7y ago
Interesting to see the difference in how HN reacts to changes like this in Safari vs Chrome. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477
- redacted 7y ago
  For whatever reason, HN is completely uncritical of anything Apple does. It has gotten to the point that _/r/apple_ tends to have a richer debate about the companies actions. It's a side effect of the lack of subreddit equivalents IMO.
  - redacted 7y ago
    This story is a perfect example btw, compare https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/d6v3mo/explanation_of_the_state_of_ublock_origin_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/d6v3mo/explanation_o... to the multiple defenses of Apple in these comments
  - hu3 7y ago
    I bet that somewhere in this ocean of apologetic comments I could find the classic one: "You're not the target audience (if you disagree with anything that Apple does)"
shujito 7y ago
There's the option for hosts-based blocking, too; unified hosts[1] for example [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
One alternative I haven't seen mentioned is Glimmerblocker[1]. There may be good reason for this—it looks like the last commit was a few years ago—but I know it still works in High Sierra at least. However, it's been a long time since I used the program regularly. Glimmerblocker is unique in that it doesn't use Safari APIs—it creates a proxy to filter traffic before it gets to the browser. Despite that, it's quite powerful; I remember using it to make an extensive Javascript patch for one site. (I vaguely remember something about Glimmberblocker needing SIP to be disabled, but there's nothing about that on their website now, so I'm not sure. I keep SIP off anyway, so I wouldn't know.) --- 1: https://glimmerblocker.org https://glimmerblocker.org
oomkiller 7y ago
Heaven forbid users choose to trade performance for a more usable browsing experience. Ads/tracking vs blocking is a war, and preventing blockers from running arbitrary code will cripple blockers, allowing technology to be developed by hugely funded ad companies that effectively bypass blockers due to these limitations. Providing a blocklist is completely insufficient for totally blocking ads and tracking, as anyone that has used the content blockers on iOS has observed.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Providing a blocklist is completely insufficient for totally blocking ads and tracking, as anyone that has used the content blockers on iOS has observed. I have used a content blocker for more than four years and I would have to disagree.
  - hu3 7y ago
    Well of course, content blocker audience is still scarce vs ad blockers, hardly worth investing. That will change if content blocking is the norm.
makecheck 7y ago
This isn’t just about applying some regexes, it’s about disabling utterly obnoxious “features” of web sites. Until a content blocker can offer a right-click “block THIS element” feature, they won’t come close to the power of uBO. The UI alone for highlighting the exact offender in the document tree is brilliant. Every time a “newsletter” pops in my face, I can banish it forever. Every unnecessary floating space-stealing navigation bar, I can banish, returning the screen space that was stolen from me. Every scroll-with-the-article Facebook/Twitter gadget can be similarly removed.
- barrowclift 7y ago
  While not a right-click, 1Blocker for macOS Safari does indeed a support "block this element" feature with their extension.

645 points by n1000 7y ago

I don't understand why this is a good thing. As a user, I can make my own choices on what type of as blocking technology I want to use. I'm sure most people on HN would support legalization of marijuana even though it is arguable that smoking marijuana is bad for you. Same thing applies here, I should be able to choose what ad blocking technology I want to use.

bonestamp2 7y ago
> I can make my own choices on what type of as blocking technology I want to use True, safari may not be for you then (it's not for me either). But for many people, especially those who don't understand how to get good privacy online, safari takes that guesswork out of the process. Apple applies similar logic to other security related choices they make for users too. It's not for everyone, but it is arguably good for many.
forgottenpass 7y ago
If prohibition had Apple's marketing behind it, a huge number of people would suddenly get onboard. Paternalism from software companies is popular these days.

sooheon 7y ago

I've found Ka-block! to work well enough that I'm happy waiting until a clear winner between 1Blocker and AdGuard emerges. OTOH, the bigger annoyance has been the fact that none of the vi key extensions for Safari seem to work anymore.

protomyth 7y ago

Let me get this straight, because Apple is worried I might leak private information to the Extension Developer, they came up with a new "content blocking" scheme that is not as capable so now my risk has increased for every website I visit? I think I would like to take my chances with the Extension Developer.

jokoon 7y ago

I'm starting to hate the internet

eduardo2002 7y ago

Wow

jkp56 7y ago

Everybody misses the point. The declarative API takes control away from the user. Currently you can block everything except the useful content. With the declarative API you can block only trackers A, B and C, but not C and D, because C and D weren't added to the global list of trackers. Moreover, you won't even know that C and D exist. With the declarative api, trackers get a trivial way to bypass adblocking: they can just change the domain name. This is the true goal of declarative API, not performance or security. Why does the declarative API still allow to monitor your traffic? This sort of contradicts the security selling point, right? Because corporate users need to monitor activity of their employees: they install a corp extension that monitors traffic. They don't need to block anything, but they need the monitoring ability. The argument that adblockers can route all your traffic thru their servers simply doesn't stand. If this was a concern, the browser could refine the permissions model: an extension can monitor and block any traffic, but it doesn't have access to the internet. Just like in Android you can uncheck the camera and mic permissions for any app. Problem solved.

floatingatoll 7y ago
If you could declare a sufficiently advanced Lua script, that would negate all incompatibilities while still allowing complex blockers to function. Why hasn’t the blocker community proposed such yet? It seems like it’s the missing piece: How little scripting capabilities are necessary, etc. If you had MATCH expressions, CASE statements, and $1/$2/... capturing backreferences, would any of this even be a problem?
- jkp56 7y ago
  I don't understand your point. It doesn't matter what the language is: JS, Lua, Python, C++ or even Rust. What matters is the API the extension has access to: tab URLs, web requests, storage, network, DOM read only or read write. Just like in mobile apps: it doesn't matter what language it's written in. It only matters what system apis it has access to.

blacklight86 7y ago

Time to start avoiding any browser that limits the power of extensions. Browsing the web today has become a dirty business, it's easy to be tracked, and users have the freaking right to defend their privacy when browsing, and to do it in whichever way they like. I'm tired of these paternalistic and uningenuous claims from Google and Apple that sound like "but we do it for you, you know, adblockers really hurt the performance of your browser". Something hurts my browsing experience? Well, it should be my call whether the pros outsize the cons or not, it should my call whether to use it or not, not the browser's developer call. After all, the web browsing experience today is way more compromised because of the huge amount of third-party scripts that run on most of the pages, surely not by extensions, but browser producers don't seem to put the same emphasis on the need of reducing the use of third-party scripts and trackers. To me decisions like blocking external web API calls in extensions just because "they may slow down your browser or put your security at risk" sound like if the Linux kernel suddenly decided to disable the support for network sockets because "you know, hackers might use them for backdoors, or you might end up connecting to an extremely slow server and hurt your experience": a complete nonsense bullshit. Plus, browsers like Brave have recently proved, with its native content blocker developed in Rust, that it's still possible to use a traditional adblocker without compromising the browsing experience. Time to uninstall Chrome. Time to uninstall Safari. Time to ditch away all the browsers that do their best to limit your freedom on how you surf the web. Extensions are among the foundations of a modern browser, and limiting their power to static lists of rules is an immoral decision that deserves a serious boycot act from users.

untitled87 7y ago

Safari is the new Chrome

RodgerTheGreat 7y ago

This is a serious impending problem for Safari users. The web has become nearly unusable without a high-quality, uncompromised ad blocker like uBO.

dmortin 7y ago
I use a blocker too, but the problem is if everyone starts blocking ads then the current free internet cannot be sustained as it is today. We'll have to move to a paid model, which won't be cheap if you choose to visit many sites, like today, and also the clearing entity will know about what sites you browse. It can't be anonymous, because in case of a dispute it has to be known who paid for what.
- chopin 7y ago
  Serve un-obstrusive first party ads. I have no problem with that. Otherwise, go and die.
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    So only the websites that are big enough to make deals with specific advertisers are allowed to make money on the internet?
    - iamnotacrook 7y ago
      Did local newspapers have a problem "making deals with specific advertisers"? I mean, if that's the business you're in, better get on it, right?
    - chopin 7y ago
      So you're only allowed to sell stuff nationwide if you're big enough? Oh wait, there's EBay... I am sure solutions for this will spring up if need be. There's money involved, after all. Edit to add: These solutions will not be as convenient as the current state of affairs, I contest that.

mukundmr 7y ago

There are ways to make AdBlockers work with Safari 13. It is a question of someone taking the effort to adhere to the new design enforced by Apple for Safari extensions. I switched to AdGuard from uBlock Origin.

zerealshadowban 7y ago
I've made the same switch to AdGuard after upgrading to Safari 13, happy so far. (I've loved uBlock Origin for many years.)

a012 7y ago

I didn't know this first but spent awhile after installed Safari 13 and noticed uBO wasn't there anymore and spent time searching for alternative options and valuating those mentioned in the post but decided I'll go with FF and only use Safari with some websites those I'm working with them.

vuln 7y ago
I started downloading the update while read another thread. I immediately cut off the WiFi and stopped the download. I also downloaded Firefox to check it out and it seems pretty good.

_Understated_ 7y ago

This is not good! I thought Apple were way out in front when it came to tracking and whatnot... My wife uses a MAC at home and was complaining about how slow our internet was (70Mb down... not slow) a while back. She mainly looks at news sites and when I saw what she was looking at I knew the problem wasn't the internet connection. The entire page, apart from a tiny bit in the middle, was cluttered with moving shit! I installed uBlock Origin and... the result was fantastic: pages loaded in a fraction of the time. When she realised that the articles were a tiny proportion of the downloaded crap she realised she'd been missing out for so long. Once, when the MAC went back for repair, it was replaced with a new one and OMG the horror when she fired up Safari and it had no blocker... UBlock Origin to the rescue. I agree with one of the other comments on here: The web is utterly unusable without it.

kstrauser 7y ago
Apple isn't ending ad blockers. They're ending the specific API that uBlock Origin uses. For instance, I use 1Blocker on Mac and iOS and it does a great job of blocking ads using the still-supported APIs.
ChrisLTD 7y ago
Apple is trying to thread the needle. They want to allow content blocking, but they do not want to allow content blocking plugins to see and potentially report on what sites you visit. Personally, I’m totally cool with the trade-off of having less capable ad blocking functionality, if I can be sure my web plugins aren’t a security or privacy risk.
- deftturtle 7y ago
  I don’t see why Safari can’t block extensions from sending data to remote servers. Seems like a pretty basic thing, so we have more powerful tools and not the privacy risks
  - om2 7y ago
    Preventing exfiltration by a tool that's by definition allowed to affect outgoing network traffic via blocking is an impossible problem.

lmedinas 7y ago

Well i have no complains about Safari but their Extension system is really costing them users. At this point I uBlock Origin is by far the most reliable AdBlocker you can find and my having the developers explaining that in the future maybe only Firefox will support it it's kinda of sad. Of course we know that Google has to make money from Ads so its understandable but what about Apple ? They are putting heavy focus in privacy, would it be good if they open their browser to make sure their users will not move to Chrome/Firefox or other browser ?

lotsofpulp 7y ago
I don’t see any ads with Firefox focus/1 blocker as my content blocker.
kache_ 7y ago
The day ublock origin doesn't work on chrome is the day users will flock to firefox. We have seen time and time again that users aren't afraid of switching browsers. This is because since their core functionality is so similar, small advantages will tip the scales.
- blablabla123 7y ago
  Exactly, especially for people who don't do web development the difference is hardly there. Actually I recently started to prefer Safari, despite its less smoother Tab UX but this was enough reason to make me switch to Firefox (Nightly). I'm also surprised that it seems to start faster than Safari.
- hans1729 7y ago
  As a chrome-user: this. Firefox lost me years ago due to performance differences, and since chrome works fine for me, there was no ux-related reason to switch back. The day I'll see ads everywhere will be the day I'm back to firefox, and without second thoughts at that. If I really like your service, I'll happily pay for it. I hate ads, the psychological strats behind them are completely unacceptable. I'd happily pay google a subscription-rate, if that's what it takes tbh. Take my money, not my attention.

rubyfan 7y ago

I’ve been using the MacOS Beta for a while and lack of uBlock Origin has made browsing terrible again. Ads everywhere now and I had forgotten how bad it was. Firefox has gotten pretty good now, the only problem is no integration with Keychain which is a serious downside. On iOS I use Safari but with BlockBear and Firefox Focus as content blockers. So my experience there is pretty good. iCloud Keychain makes my password situation a lot better going between iOS and MacOS... I’m not sure I can achieve the same using Firefox right now.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> Firefox has gotten pretty good now But it burns through the battery!
- mpranjic 7y ago
  I'm not a Mac owner, but apparently it got better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20874139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20874139
- DCKing 7y ago
  That is true currently. Know that this problem will be strongly reduced in the next version of Firefox, to be released on October 22nd. Firefox will use much less power then, on par with Chrome (haven't seen direct comparisons to Safari). Unfortunately by the time it's released Catalina will be out for a month already.
joaobeno 7y ago
Did you try the Firefox Account? I use Firefox on desktop, android and iOS, and sync my passwords with no problem.
- rubyfan 7y ago
  Can you sync passwords between Firefox and Keychain? I’m essentially looking for that. I use iOS apps which leverage Keychain which can share passwords with both app and website. I’d ideally like to not have multiple password tools.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

simias 7y ago

It's interesting that Google and Apple seem to be converging on this issue (ad-blocking extensions) even though they're probably coming from two different directions. Google probably wants to discourage ad-blocking because it's a threat to their business model. Apple just dislikes not having full control on what the users run (and sometimes for good reasons, they probably want to avoid malware extensions). Still, in the end they both end up with subpar ad blocking facilities as a result. Firefox really needs to become a worthy competitor once again. And no I don't consider forks of Chromium to be reasonable alternatives in the long term, at least until those teams prove that they can maintain a deep fork of the browser on their own which will be necessary if they need to maintain functionality that Google removes from upstream.

bduerst 7y ago
Isn't Firefox a fork of chromium? Same as Brave?
- earenndil 7y ago
  No. Firefox has always been separate; it has its roots in netscape navigator, while chromium dates to KHTML.
- loeg 7y ago
  Firefox preexists Chrome by like, six years (2002, 2008). Firefox stems from Mozilla (1998) stems from Netscape Navigator (1994, originally). Chrome stems from Blink stems from Webkit (Apple's thing, 2001ish) stems from KHTML (KDE, 1998). Amusingly, all the historical parts of the Chrome stack are basically still around. You can install recent versions of Safari and use Webkit, or install recent versions of Konqueror and browse the web with KHTML (although development has lagged since 2016).
_frkl 7y ago
You don't think Firefox is a worthy competitor at the moment? I've used it quite happily in the last few years, but would be interested in what you think its shortcomings are. I know there is supposed to be a power drain issue, but I haven't noticed that personally. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any major issues.

yladiz 7y ago

It was asked in the Github comments on this issue, but I want to clarify for myself: is the main difference between "content blockers" and "ad blocker" that works like uBlock Origin the way that they handle blocking content? What are the downsides to the content blocking plugin model?

tbrock 7y ago
In my limited understanding content blockers seem more sane as they doesn’t give the extension cart blanche to read your pages and write to the DOM. Instead it passes links to content the browser wants to load into the content blocker as a filter function. The seems very sensible given extension owners could start injecting malicious content on the page. Nothing prevents them from selling out — it’s happened before. I use uBlock origin and love it in Chrome but I can also see where Apple is coming from here. This will probably protect the greatest number of their users.
- roblabla 7y ago
  The way adblocks like UBo works isn't by injecting stuff in the DOM. Instead, they look at requests going out, and can ask the browser to "fail" it. It can do that based on custom logic - a piece of javascript code runs for every requests. UBO also has the facility to delete/hide arbitrary nodes from the DOM in order to hide ads that might come bundled with the page. None of those functionalities can really be used maliciously. At best you can break websites by denying them the ability to load stuff. The problem is that both functionality are bundled with other privacy-invading things (like injecting or reading). But that's of no fault of UBO, it's just the way Safari and Chrome decided to set the permission granularity. You could have a secure, restrictive API without blocking the best features of UBO. Google chose not to because it's potentially damaging their business model, and Apple probably chose not to out of simplicity.
  - sigotirandolas 7y ago
    I think that this, i.e. with request and element filtering, is how it works the majority of the time. However, uBlock Origin can (and sometimes does) inject arbitrary scripts into the page. They can it "scriptlets", see this link: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#scriptlet-injection https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#... . You can see some usages in the "uBlock Filters" filter list included with uBlock Origin. I think it's more the exception rather than the norm, but it's there. My fear is that if extensions are crippled and mainstream ad-blocking standardizes on those kinds of restricted "content blockers", it's possible for ad companies to implement an effective technical bypass for them, since they can execute arbitrary scripts, but "content blockers" can't, unlike extensions. You would need Apple/Google/etc. to play the ad-blocking arms race, and they probably won't have incentives for it.

halostatue 7y ago

I have used Better (https://better.fyi https://better.fyi) on the Mac since the content blocker system was introduced and have never had a problem.

leemailll 7y ago

As it mentioned, it will not work in future release of safari and chrome. So only choice will be Firefox on Mac?

pedrocx486 7y ago
If Chrome/ium forks decide to maintain the needed APIs they will still support it. There's also Brave. In the meantime I'm with the new Edge (forked from Chromium) in hopes MS won't be stupid.

DCKing 7y ago

I like using Safari and uBlock Origin. I notice that I am not a power user of browsers - give tabs, a forward and backward button and any adblocker and I used to be happy. This mean that I could easily use Safari and Firefox - I prefer not to use Chrome derivatives to do my part in preventing developers from forgetting about other browsers. However, I have recently become a power user of uBlock Origin specifically to curtail the general attention hacking on the web. uBlock Origin is already a very great ad blocker in its default installation, but I've recently got into using its powerful cosmetic filters to block out "attention hacking features", such as (all of) YouTube's recommendations, comments on various sites, and stuff like the "Hot Network Questions" on StackOverflow. Things I've discovered that are too good at distracting my mind. With a few uBlock Origin cosmetic filter rules, those website elements remain hidden when I visit them. I wonder if it's possible to continue using Safari with my own distraction filters. It's a shame if I have to stop using it.

rurp 7y ago
I really like the idea of using uBlock Origin to block distractions. I've used it quite a bit to block minor annoying website features like sticky menus or marketing popups. I might start using it more extensively to block actual content.
twostoned 7y ago
I need to block attention hacking features also, have been thinking about this recently. Stupid youtube.
- DCKing 7y ago
  In uBlock Origin settings > My filters, paste the following rules to turn YouTube in just a search bar + video player: youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype='home'] youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer youtube.com##app-drawer youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-comments youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer youtube.com##ytd-mini-guide-renderer youtube.com##ytd-topbar-menu-button-renderer youtube.com###buttons.ytd-masthead youtube.com##yt-icon-button youtube.com##.ytp-endscreen-content Note this is only accurate at the time of writing, only works partially on mobile, and may break some edge cases I don't use :) [1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax

happybuy 7y ago

There are plenty of good ad blocker alternatives available for Safari on macOS and iOS. I’ve created one that is updated regularly, has a free option, respects your privacy and doesn’t take any $ from advertisers to let ads through the ad block rules [1]. Simply search on the App Store for a variety of alternatives. uBlock Origin is good but it’s not the be all and end all of ad blocking especially on Apple platforms. [1] More details at https://www.magiclasso.co/ https://www.magiclasso.co/

sascha_sl 7y ago
You've got pretty bad reviews, mostly because you seem to hide essential features behind a paywall. I can't tell which features those are because your site is not really transparent about that either, probably in a weird attempt to hook whoever is reading it on the bold "free" part of the page. Not great.
- ihuman 7y ago
  The website is pretty transparent about what is paid. The features page has some features listed as part of the "pro" subscription. It seems that the only paid additions are automated rule updates, a whitelist, and early access to new features. https://www.magiclasso.co/#features https://www.magiclasso.co/#features

oedmarap 7y ago

A while ago I uninstalled uBO/PrivacyBadger and switched to using a combination of NextDNS [0] and Brave for daily driving (Firefox for work because FF containers) and the adblocking + browsing experience has been nothing short of stellar. NextDNS takes the load off outside the network perimeter and concatenates all the many lists and trackers in one dashboard. I'm free to use other gentler add-ons in the browser if I so desire, rather than have the DOM split apart and my local machine do all the heavy lifting. The best thing about using DNS-level blocking is that it's an elegant solution across all my devices, especially when paired with a VPN that enforces those resolvers. [0] https://nextdns.io https://nextdns.io

viraptor 7y ago
Where that fails though is exceptions. Do you want to block ads, but follow that one link you're really interested in? Sorry, it redirects via a doubleclick site and you can't allow just that one entry. You also need to leave your browser environment to find and unblock it.
- dspillett 7y ago
  That irritated me once or twice at first, after setting PiHole to implement DNS based ad blocking at the network level. It hasn't bothered me long term though. If that happens and I care enough about what made me follow the link then a quick search has always brought up another route to that content or equivalent content. Often I don't care even that much in which case I click the back button or close the tab and get on with something else. In fact this "problem" might be saving me wasted time that I can use/waste elsewhere. It might even be saving money by reducing impulse purchases, if the links are ones I've followed to see what the sales pitch is for a product/service that has been mentioned in an article!
  - viraptor 7y ago
    For me it's the opposite. Not being able to bypass that doubleclick block would mean that I lose the deal I'm trying to get and would lose money on something I'm actually planning to pay for.

WA 7y ago

I use AdGuard on iOS and you can use very similar block lists as uBlock Origin for macOS does. Besides ads, I block social media on third party sites. This kind of tracking is just outright evil. I'll give it on macOS a try, because the other day, I noticed that uBlock Origin didn't detect one specific tracking URL, but Firefox did (and it clearly was in the network tab of the Safari developer tools). Now it's clear why: uBO is outdated for Safari. Anyways, thanks for the port and maintenance all those years when I could use uBO!

saagarjha 7y ago
That’s surprising, as I’m sure even an outdated uBlock Origin should fetch an up-to-date EasyList.
- WA 7y ago
  I thought so too, but the version number was the only difference. If I find the link again, I can post it here.

Someone 7y ago

So, if I understand things correctly, the change is from “browser passes URL to blocker, blocker runs arbitrary code to decide whether to block it” to “blocker passes description of URLs to block to browser, browser runs code”? In the (somewhat) analogous case of antivirus tools, that change is from using heuristics to detect viruses to using fingerprints. I’m not sure that makes much of a difference there (but possibly I’m wrong) Also, the risk here is lower, so not taking the risk to run arbitrary code in exchange for somewhat better ad blocking may be the better choice. So, what are real-life examples that the uBlock Origin currently blocks that new blockers won’t be able to block?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Miraste 7y ago
Safari now only allows up to 50k blocked elements. If there are more than 50k things you wish to block (my lists currently have >200k and uBlock Origin by default is over 100k), Safari won't let you.
- kstrauser 7y ago
  That's not true. Safari only allows 50K elements per list, but an app can (and some do) have multiple lists.
- djrogers 7y ago
  That’s 50k per list - many blockers (like 1Blocker) simply have different lists for each category of blocked elements. Works well.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  uBlock Origin filters can be compressed a bit, FWIW. I’m not sure yet if it’s enough to get it to fit in the 50k limit.

twsted 7y ago

I've seen that now Little Snitch (4) has the possibility to load community's blocklists. Any feedback on this?

jen729w 7y ago
I use this with Peter Lowe’s blocklist [0]. I’d share the exact setup but I’m not near my Mac just now. It’s great, but I also use 1Blocker — have since its release, also use it on iOS — and I think it does most of the work. I’ve only recently added the blocklist to Little Snitch and I don’t notice much difference. Of course Little Snitch is blocking all network traffic, including Firefox. I use Firefox as my dev browser and don’t have any blocking extensions loaded. It’s in the category of ‘why not’ for me, I already have Little Snitch so I may as well load in these rules. [0]: https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/

zw 7y ago

This is a mind-boggling level of FUD. Content blockers have been noticeably superior on both macOS and iOS for years. They’re not “limited”, they’re rational. It’s abjectly absurd that traditional ad blockers can consume as much CPU as they do on every single page load. I hope everyone in this thread jumping ship to Firefox in a panic enjoys their shorter battery life.

Nextgrid 7y ago
Disagreed. Content blockers are "dumb" as they just provide a list of URLs/regexes to block, which doesn't always work and doesn't allow behaviour-based blocking like "dynamic filtering" that some Javascript-based adblockers have. Sure, it's technically possible for a JS blocker to use more CPU, but 1) it's a trade-off the user should be allowed to make (I'm happy to sacrifice some CPU in exchange for better ad blocking and privacy) and 2) I never had a case where a JS-based blocker noticeably impacted performance.
Varriount 7y ago
Aside from battery life, how are the current alternatives for Safari better than uBlock?
lightedman 7y ago
"I hope everyone in this thread jumping ship to Firefox in a panic enjoys their shorter battery life." 10 hours on my Chromebook using FireFox Focus and uBO vs 7 hours using Chrome. Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?
Mehvix 7y ago
Users should have the choice as to what method of adlbocking they want to use.

OnlyRepliesToBS 7y ago

ruinous

Zelphyr 7y ago

There is a lot of confusion around this issue. Some people are taking this to mean that Safari has completely banned ad blockers, which isn't the case. Instead they've switched to a model that matches what they've been doing on iOS which is content blocking[1]. Content blockers give Safari a list of triggers and actions to take when something matches a trigger. For example; you can have a trigger which contains a regex that matches all images and stylesheets for a given domain. The action can be one of several options, one of which is to block that item. One advantage this technique provides over ad blocking is that there's no data to be phoned back home. It is, in essence, a mask that is applied to a web page before rendering. Also, it's very lightweight. It's literally just a JSON document which means Safari can perform better. Now, I'll admit it's not foolproof. Apple and the content blockers have some work to do on it. I'm noticing some issues with it myself after having upgraded to Safari 13. But from a privacy perspective, I personally much prefer this technique. 1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/creating_a_content_blocker https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...

littlestymaar 7y ago
> One advantage this technique provides over ad blocking is that there's no data to be phoned back home. […] But from a privacy perspective, I personally much prefer this technique. Are you suggesting uBO is sending data “back home”? It doesn't, and this comment is borderline FUD.
- dmix 7y ago
  If only everyone used uBlock instead of the countless other scammy adblockers with millions of active users, which do not take privacy nearly as seriously. OP also never mentioned uBlock specifically, so I wouldn't be so quick to call it FUD. Whether or not this is a sufficient solution is one thing, but there are some legitimate problems with the current state of adblocking. Being able to provide a similar solution in a far more limited fashion would be a good thing for users.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  They never suggested anything of the sort. That being said, for every uBO that doesn't send that data back home, there are 1000s of "ad-blockers" that do exactly that.

jedberg 7y ago

FWIW, I've been on Catalina for a couple of months now, which means no uBlock, and the web has been pretty usable. Safari alone seems to be doing a pretty good job with isolating the worst ads. That being said, this post reminded me to install a replacement, so I just installed Adguard. We'll see how it goes.

lethologica 7y ago
Are you not concerned by the permissions Adguard requires?
- jedberg 7y ago
  No because Safari is my “web browser”. It’s the one I use for HN/Reddit etc. Anything I’d consider “private” like email or banking or even GitHub is done with FireFox or Chrome. Also I didn’t see anything flagrantly bad at first glance. Edit: Looking closer you may be referring to the old extension and not the new “content blocker” version, which is sandboxed by Safari and didn’t need to ask for any permissions.
- 3JPLW 7y ago
  I installed Adguard myself after reading this post — it appears as though they've split the functionality into many extensions, and only a few require full-page access. I'm trying it without those "advanced" extensions enabled and it seems to be doing just fine.

jmnicolas 7y ago

I find a bit strange that he didn't think of Pihole as one of the alternative. https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/

GuB-42 7y ago
There is an overlap in features but these are different, and possibly complementary things. Pyhole vs uBlockOrigin: - is hardware based - works on a global scale, including the browser, apps, and the OS itself - can only block domains, not full URLs - doesn't have cosmetic filters - works at home, not really on the go. there is a VPN, but it still uses your home connection The intermediate solution would be hosts-based blocking.

PStamatiou 7y ago

For those looking for a related alternative/supplement.. consider a privacy DNS solution. I've really been liking NextDNS lately. Lets you customize a ton of stuff: It launched on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687 https://nextdns.io https://nextdns.io

plopz 7y ago
Isn't the main issue with DNS blocking the same as this "content blocking", i.e. it cant work for things like blocking Twitch's SureStream ads? Interestingly I found this while looking around for the answer: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/5184#issuecomment-475864036 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/5184#issuecom...

hackworks 7y ago

I went through the process of tearing away from Chrome. I only aspect that was holding me back was my stored passwords in Chrome and shared seamlessly with Android password manager. Exported the passwords and imported it into Enpass. That was the first step in liberation. I then decided to keep my personal and work related browsing separate especially since both require a google account (Gsuite at work). I wanted an ability to open the browser of my choice based on the URL I click and work anywhere on MacOS. I implemented a simple URL handler that I register as default browser and that opens the clicked URL in appropriate browser: https://github.com/hackworks/chromer https://github.com/hackworks/chromer It is not a very polished implementation but has been working reliably so far. With that, I am now able to switch between any browser without any lock in.

mfcl 7y ago
Have you looked into Firefox Containers for separating your personal and work accounts?
- rcarmo 7y ago
  Another vote for Firefox Containers here. I do use Safari for my personal stuff, but Firefox Containers is _extremely_ useful when you work with multiple clients and have to switch between contexts for the same site (in my case the Azure portal and various e-mail accounts). One container per customer, and it's all neat and tidy.

kgwxd 7y ago

Apple's goal is not hackability, it's to provide a safe environment for users to generate revenue. It's Dave & Buster's. That was the idea for mobile from day one. They did a great job out of the gate and they're getting better at it every year. They've had to work backwards in desktop because people used to expect full-control of those machines, but they're slowly bringing users around. If you want to practice self-defense and weaponry, don't do it at Dave & Buster's.

bberenberg 7y ago

Does anyone have a local proxy that can do this instead? I am aware of GlimmerBlocker, but would love to hear broader feedback on the topic.

proaralyst 7y ago
There's pi-hole but it's only a DNS blocker

wdr1 7y ago

Interesting to see the difference in how HN reacts to changes like this in Safari vs Chrome. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477

redacted 7y ago
For whatever reason, HN is completely uncritical of anything Apple does. It has gotten to the point that _/r/apple_ tends to have a richer debate about the companies actions. It's a side effect of the lack of subreddit equivalents IMO.
- redacted 7y ago
  This story is a perfect example btw, compare https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/d6v3mo/explanation_of_the_state_of_ublock_origin_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/d6v3mo/explanation_o... to the multiple defenses of Apple in these comments
- hu3 7y ago
  I bet that somewhere in this ocean of apologetic comments I could find the classic one: "You're not the target audience (if you disagree with anything that Apple does)"

shujito 7y ago

There's the option for hosts-based blocking, too; unified hosts[1] for example [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

One alternative I haven't seen mentioned is Glimmerblocker[1]. There may be good reason for this—it looks like the last commit was a few years ago—but I know it still works in High Sierra at least. However, it's been a long time since I used the program regularly. Glimmerblocker is unique in that it doesn't use Safari APIs—it creates a proxy to filter traffic before it gets to the browser. Despite that, it's quite powerful; I remember using it to make an extensive Javascript patch for one site. (I vaguely remember something about Glimmberblocker needing SIP to be disabled, but there's nothing about that on their website now, so I'm not sure. I keep SIP off anyway, so I wouldn't know.) --- 1: https://glimmerblocker.org https://glimmerblocker.org

oomkiller 7y ago

Heaven forbid users choose to trade performance for a more usable browsing experience. Ads/tracking vs blocking is a war, and preventing blockers from running arbitrary code will cripple blockers, allowing technology to be developed by hugely funded ad companies that effectively bypass blockers due to these limitations. Providing a blocklist is completely insufficient for totally blocking ads and tracking, as anyone that has used the content blockers on iOS has observed.

saagarjha 7y ago
> Providing a blocklist is completely insufficient for totally blocking ads and tracking, as anyone that has used the content blockers on iOS has observed. I have used a content blocker for more than four years and I would have to disagree.
- hu3 7y ago
  Well of course, content blocker audience is still scarce vs ad blockers, hardly worth investing. That will change if content blocking is the norm.

makecheck 7y ago

This isn’t just about applying some regexes, it’s about disabling utterly obnoxious “features” of web sites. Until a content blocker can offer a right-click “block THIS element” feature, they won’t come close to the power of uBO. The UI alone for highlighting the exact offender in the document tree is brilliant. Every time a “newsletter” pops in my face, I can banish it forever. Every unnecessary floating space-stealing navigation bar, I can banish, returning the screen space that was stolen from me. Every scroll-with-the-article Facebook/Twitter gadget can be similarly removed.

barrowclift 7y ago
While not a right-click, 1Blocker for macOS Safari does indeed a support "block this element" feature with their extension.