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> It’s easy to feel that iOS isn’t on your side when you can’t use a non-WebKit browser and can’t use an adblocker. Not only does Safari allow for 3rd-party ad

> It’s easy to feel that iOS isn’t on your side when you can’t use a non-WebKit browser and can’t use an adblocker. Not only does Safari allow for 3rd-party adblock extensions that are pretty good, there are iOS browsers available, like iCab Mobile[0] for instance, that allow for extremely fine-grained, granular and tweakable ad-blocking, filtering, domain-blocking, and CSS and javascript rules - all of which can be user-edited and refined to fit exactly the user's own requirements. There are always so many comments like the above in these threads: often characterized by people banging on iOS because it "can't be customized the way I want it after I paid so much for my iPhone". But these seem to be just standard consumer-mindset complaining from users that don't even have the intellectual curiosity to investigate whether there's actually anything already available that solves their imagined problem, or even try to fix it themselves - just as the article says. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/icab-mobile-web-browser/id308111628 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/icab-mobile-web-browser/id3081...

captn3m0 6y ago
The 3rd-party adblock extensions only work within Safari.
- null_object 6y ago
  > The 3rd-party adblock extensions only work within Safari. Did you read my entire comment? Can you see that there are entire browser apps that implement really granular and user-controllable ad-blocking. In other words exactly the thing the poster I was responding to is complaining about.
doctorfoo 6y ago
You still can't use a non webkit browser though. It's Internet Explorer levels of non-competition. I would love to be able to say to my users, when they experience an issue with Safari - "you can try a different browser". But I can't because the same issue will be present in Chrome.
- brorfred 6y ago
  But that's what you a developer want, not necessarily the users. I'm extremely happy that you can't tell me to use another browser and have to fix your code for Safari instead. I think that you have a right to decide which browser I can use, even if I'm your costumer. I knew the rules when I bought my iPhone and had to accept them, even if it means only using webkit. Being forced to switch to Chrome when using a specific website just because the developer didn't feel like making it work in Safari is very annoying on the Mac and would make me go nut on the phone.
  - doctorfoo 6y ago
    It's not "fix my code" when Safari doesn't even support the feature or it's simply broken - or most annoyingly, it works one day and breaks with an update. (See: webrtc stuff) You might have known the rules, but most users don't. Plenty will come to me saying they've tried both Safari and Chrome and that it won't work in either, indicating they have no knowledge of webkit. Android also randomly breaks things now and then, but I can at least direct users to Firefox, which never seems to have any problems. Please understand redirecting users to another browser is only ever a last resort. If I can fix the code I will, but sometimes something just stops working and I can't even reproduce it. ...and I have a teacher who is relying on my app for their classes this week and "try firefox" could save them...

captn3m0 6y ago

The 3rd-party adblock extensions only work within Safari.

null_object 6y ago
> The 3rd-party adblock extensions only work within Safari. Did you read my entire comment? Can you see that there are entire browser apps that implement really granular and user-controllable ad-blocking. In other words exactly the thing the poster I was responding to is complaining about.

doctorfoo 6y ago

You still can't use a non webkit browser though. It's Internet Explorer levels of non-competition. I would love to be able to say to my users, when they experience an issue with Safari - "you can try a different browser". But I can't because the same issue will be present in Chrome.

brorfred 6y ago
But that's what you a developer want, not necessarily the users. I'm extremely happy that you can't tell me to use another browser and have to fix your code for Safari instead. I think that you have a right to decide which browser I can use, even if I'm your costumer. I knew the rules when I bought my iPhone and had to accept them, even if it means only using webkit. Being forced to switch to Chrome when using a specific website just because the developer didn't feel like making it work in Safari is very annoying on the Mac and would make me go nut on the phone.
- doctorfoo 6y ago
  It's not "fix my code" when Safari doesn't even support the feature or it's simply broken - or most annoyingly, it works one day and breaks with an update. (See: webrtc stuff) You might have known the rules, but most users don't. Plenty will come to me saying they've tried both Safari and Chrome and that it won't work in either, indicating they have no knowledge of webkit. Android also randomly breaks things now and then, but I can at least direct users to Firefox, which never seems to have any problems. Please understand redirecting users to another browser is only ever a last resort. If I can fix the code I will, but sometimes something just stops working and I can't even reproduce it. ...and I have a teacher who is relying on my app for their classes this week and "try firefox" could save them...