18 ms·

uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS

411 points by Squarex 1y ago

wao0uuno 1y ago
It’s fast but doesn’t block all ads for me.
HexDecOctBin 1y ago
It's a shame Firefox on iOS has failed/refused to support third-party content filters [1] since 2019. Just because they can't bring Gecko doesn't mean they shouldn't try to gain mindshare for the Mozilla Firefox brand on one of the biggest platforms, yet they refuse to put in the resources. 1: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/5198 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/5198
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- freeAgent 1y ago
  Somewhat ironically, you can install and use the Firefox uBO extension on Orion for iOS. Orion/Kagi figured out how to do it before Firefox/Mozilla.
  - eddythompson80 1y ago
    Last I tried Orion was a couple of months ago. I wouldn't really say "figured out" per se. Like I see the vision, I like the vision, but I'm waiting.
    - freeAgent 1y ago
      I mean that they figured out how to support (most) browser extensions on iOS in their browser, unlike Firefox. They haven’t figured everything out, but I do daily drive Orion on iOS. I still prefer Firefox on desktop due to stability (and Orion’s extension advantage in mobile doesn’t extend to desktop).
      - SG- 1y ago
        Not most, they have figured out a few and they don't work very well.
        jeffhuys 1y ago
        Really all I wanted was uBlock and that works. That being said, after being my daily driver for almost a year, I went back to safari about a month ago with Wipr. 3x speedup and battery efficiency. Unfortunately, it became buggier instead of less buggy :( Still use it on mac tho - vertical tabs are a game-changer.
        freeAgent 1y ago
        What do you need that doesn’t work?
        graynk 1y ago
        uBlock does not work. I don't know how people check that it works for them, but for me it definitely does not. Neither does e.g. https://getindie.wiki/ https://getindie.wiki/ - redirects don't work and I can't even get to the settings page from the menu (it does open once after install, but afterwards the button that's supposed to open it does nothing) UPD: Somehow installing indie wiki extension second time (without deleting it, just pressing "add to orion" a second time) partially fixed it. Redirects now works, banners are broken, showing "visit $destination$ instead"
  - toofy 1y ago
    from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs. even without the bugs, after everything we’ve been through with crazy shit from closed sourced browser companies, the last thing i’d install would be orion/kagi. lol nuh uh. not a chance i’d trust an ai company with almost the entirety of my online existence—especially when they close off and hide what they’re doing.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs I use it as a daily driver on macOS. Not noticing the bugs anymore.
      - trws 1y ago
        I just started giving it a try again about a week ago, and I second this. A year ago it was nearly unusable for any extension outside their preferred list, now it’s largely a pleasant experience.
      - godelski 1y ago
        I use it on iPhone, it has lots of bugs. But it's worth it for the ad blocking
        Larrikin 1y ago
        Why not just use AdGuard or PiHole?
        godelski 1y ago
        Those are DNS blockers. You're not going to block YouTube ads with those. Plus, I want blocking when I'm outside of my house. I don't always want to run everything through Tailscale and Apple doesn't always make that easy. It'll turn off your VPN quite frequently...
      - hoistbypetard 1y ago
        Do you use Bitwarden with it, by any chance? I daily drove it for quite a while, about mid 2022-late 2023. Poor bitwarden support plus a pile of paper cuts drove me away. When it worked as intended, I liked it, and I'm not opposed to paying for a good browser, but it was too buggy at that time for a subscription to feel like a good deal.
  - graynk 1y ago
    except it doesn't work. but you can install it, yes. I want to like Orion but I've seen the same bugs for a year now.
    - Aerbil313 1y ago
      I'm using Orion as my daily driver on iOS mainly because of a Safari bug[1]. It used to be very buggy, had frequent app crashes for no reason at all but nowadays (since a year?) works pretty fine, even the UBO plugin works fine. 1: You can long tap and select "Download Linked File" on any link in Safari, including links that are forbidden by Content Restrictions, such as a news.ycombinator.com link from google search. Ping me if a Safari engineer sees this and fixes it!
      - hedora 1y ago
        I use Orion. I hit some crashes until I told it to autoclose tabs after a few days. I’d rather leave that off, but it’s a minor problem. I run three firefox plugins. They all work correctly.
      - akmann 1y ago
        What is it with said bug, that makes you use another browser because of it? Seems not like a big deal..
      - dylan604 1y ago
        A bug that happens for no reason? Aren’t these typically some sort of memory access violation, or am I just showing my age of what used to be the cause? I know nothing of iOS inner workings, but is illegal memory access still possible where this would be the behavior?
      - 0xCMP 1y ago
        Honestly, I was using Orion as a daily driver for a few months now and it's crazy unreliable in my experience. It also somehow uses more RAM than Chrome/Brave doing the same things, but with lots of tiny incompatibilities. I actually just switched my self back to chrome/brave for what I was using Orion for.
- neuroelectron 1y ago
  Apple really isn't that important.
- rs186 1y ago
  People who install Firefox on iOS is likely a very small number. If I were the project manager of Firefox, and with such limited resources and Google's cash going away any day, I would not put in any work either.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - HexDecOctBin 1y ago
    Sure, in which case they shouldn't have released it at all. A substandard product simply reduces the brand value.
    - rs186 1y ago
      Adblock feature!= Firefox on iOS
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- account42 1y ago
  On the contrary, caring about their "brand" more than the actual Firefox software effectively describes what is wrong with Mozilla. iOS "Firefox" shouldn't be a thing in the first place - definitely not with such a misleading name.
azretd 1y ago
I have used Wipr for years, and now Wipr 2. Worth the small amount to keep intrusive ads, and it is cross platform.
- walterbell 1y ago
  Seconded. Small one-time license fee per major version.
- VignuB 1y ago
  One of the better install and forget it content blocker. The cherry on the top of the cake is that the developer is pretty responsive too.
- wao0uuno 1y ago
  Yeah Wiper 2 works really well but it slows down my iPhone 12 considerably. I guess there’s not enough ram for all these filters. Still faster than AdGuard.
temp0826 1y ago
I like that I can use uBlock Origin in Orion on iOS but interacting with any addon in it feels finicky, so I keep it at a pretty minimal level (compared to how aggressively I block on desktop, anyways). Anything else is definitely welcome though so looking forward to it.
ivanjermakov 1y ago
> Compatibility: Requires iOS 18.0 or later and visionOS 1.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision. Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple Silicon chip.
shpx 1y ago
It's annoying how this adds a puzzle piece icon next to the url all the time.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gessha 1y ago
  Yeah, that happens when you install any extension for Safari iOS. I’ve learned to ignore it.
seam_carver 1y ago
AdGuard doens't work for me so I'm excited on macOS
sandstrom 1y ago
On this topic, I have to recommend Hush! It is an excellent free, open-source and well-maintained app for iOS. https://oblador.github.io/hush/ https://oblador.github.io/hush/
- junaru 1y ago
  iOS Safari 18.5, installed and enabled in both normal and private modes. Opened a private tab and navigated to youtube.com - got cookie consent regardless. Closed every app, restarted safari fully - same results. Same on google maps. Uninstalled.
  - gaws 1y ago
    I had the same experience and wouldn't recommend Hush.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  > On this topic, I have to recommend Hush! It is an excellent free, open-source and well-maintained app for iOS. Is it? I don’t see any maintainer activity is the past six months.
- whstl 1y ago
  It used to be nice but it breaks too many websites lately for me, unfortunately.
xoatic 1y ago
Works great both on my mac and iphone. Raymond rocks!
flixing 1y ago
arrghh it's full - how to get in?
- TheDong 1y ago
  First, clone this repository and run 'make mv3-safari' https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0b6866b2e5bd38d1871b/Makefile#L97 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0... Now you have the extension built, and you have two options for getting it onto your device: 1. Pay $100/year for a developer license, create your own testflight for yourself and your friends, upload it, there you go Or 2. Move to a european country to enable side-loading, pay $100/year for a developer license so you can sign it, and then sign + sideload it. (it's not really true sideloading, but if you're in the EU you can at least do it without testflight https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/ https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/ ) Oh, also, if you don't have a mac of some sort, you'll have to buy one. A mac mini is pretty cheap. You can also buy an android device and install any extension on firefox-for-android for free without paying apple, or anyone, $100/year.
  - armchairhacker 1y ago
    You can install without paying $100/year. You have to reinstall the app every week but settings/data/etc. are preserved. You need a mac. https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/developers/tutorials/building-blocks/how-to-test-your-ios-application-on-a-real-device-html https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/developers/tutorials/build..., and enable “Developer Mode” in your phone’s settings.
    - extraduder_ire 1y ago
      You don't need to do a full reinstall each week, getting another provisioning cert works. You can run altstore on a machine on your network, or reprovision on the device itself to re-sign the app mostly automatically. The latter does use one of your account's five free app slots though. https://github.com/sohsatoh/ReProvision-Reborn https://github.com/sohsatoh/ReProvision-Reborn
pmdr 1y ago
Firefox Focus as a content filter has always worked for me on Safari. Nowadays I mostly use Brave, though.
- dylan604 1y ago
  I get too many anti-blockers when using Firefox focus to make it anything other than something a specialist would use as a daily driver
daakus 1y ago
Mostly using Wipr 2. Brave works very well but Safari seemed maybe slightly snappier (I know the browser engine is the same). Tried this but seems like it blocked less than Wipr 2 in a quick spot check.
swasheck 1y ago
i’m currently just using a nextdns profile after using adguard for a long time. i switched because i hoped that i would stop getting the annoying admiral modals telling me to turn off my ad blocker. do any of the these solutions trick the anti adblock solutions?
jjice 1y ago
uBlock is fantastic at what it does. I'm looking forward to this. I'm currently using both Wipr 2 and AdGuard together which has worked well. AdGuard allows user defined cosmetic filters that I've come to rely on more and more in the browser, and it makes certain mobile sites so much better. Will uBlock on iOS support this?
- ents 1y ago
  I run only Wipr2 and am happy with it, even if its $5 vs free, I'm happy to support a dev who makes a great app. I'll try UBOL for iOS when its available.
  - jjice 1y ago
    Agreed, it blows my mind that more people aren't willing to pay $5-15 ($15 in my case of running Wipr 2 and AdGuard) to clean the web on your phone. The same people in my life who wouldn't think twice about a $15 cocktail. Nothing wrong with either, but damn the value equation is out of wack to me, it's just so worth it.
arthurtully 1y ago
AdGuard on iOS has worked for me for years in it's free form. It's script based so works like uBlock Origin on desktop.
- Mistletoe 1y ago
  Yep love it. Any reason to switch to this?
  - vachina 1y ago
    Probably less reason to switch, because AdGuard can no longer command any price for their current offerings.
- dawnerd 1y ago
  I ended up just paying for it due to how much I use it. Their dns is also great at blocking I’m app ads.
  - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
    [dead]
- leokennis 1y ago
  Liking AdGuard too. Both their DNS offering (basically a Pi-Hole in the cloud), and their iOS content blocker. Especially because I can subscribe to third party blocklists like HaGeZi, and AdGuard will load/transform them into Apple's custom content filtering syntax.
toastal 1y ago
I want any version of uBlock on the Sailfish OS browser
thenthenthen 1y ago
This beta is full :(((
- TheDong 1y ago
  The code's all open source: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0b6866b2e5bd38d1871b/Makefile#L97 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0... Just build your own copy, give apple $100/year for a developer license, move to a country in the EU, and then you can "sideload" this open-source code onto your device. You also need something running macOS.
  - thenthenthen 1y ago
    Thanks for the giggle. I built a few apps back in the day, back then you could build and deploy on local device, no need to pay 100$, isn’t this still the case if you do not want to deploy on the appstore? Anyway, your comment is worthy of a xkcd.
  - viktorcode 1y ago
    … or sideboard for free for a week.
    - saintfire 1y ago
      Not sure if this was a sarcastic jab or an genuine proposed solution but I laughed either way.
  - antgame11 1y ago
    *Purchase $100/year apple certificate or move to a country in the EU. You can sideload for free for a week or you can buy a 3rd party certificate for $20 dollars. For free you can use sidestore (anywhere, not just the EU) for free, but you need to connect to a WiFi network once a week. You can also build with github actions without a mac
rsync 1y ago
It is deeply disappointing how poorly Apple implements privacy tools and technologies. To wit: It is 2025 and you cannot configure a DoH endpoint in Safari on either iOS or OSX. Further, enabling DoH in iOS involves an experts-only plist file download which has many esoteric failure modes that are difficult to track and have poor (nonexistent ?) documentation. Finally, any regular person (like my wife) will have an almost immediate need to toggle adblocking DNS on and off for (weird site that breaks) but, of course, that is not possible without going through the entire plist file workflow twice (once to remove (not disable) the existing profile and once to re-download it). Ridiculous. Embarrassing.
- viktorcode 1y ago
  I might be misunderstanding your problem, but if you want to easily switch DNS there is an iOS app I was using. Sadly, don’t remember what it was called, but I’m sure an AppStore search will yield possible solutions
  - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
    [dead]
  - rsync 1y ago
    We should not need an app - nor a fraught trust model and software supply chain analysis - to set a basic network setting. I appreciate your help but I'm not downloading some rando app to set a DNS server. Your child is getting flagged/downvoted for pointing out that Android has actual DNS settings and that person is correct.
    - viktorcode 1y ago
      Maybe we should not have the app to do that, but we can have it and personally I missed that one tap convenience on my Mac.
- oktoberpaard 1y ago
  FWIW: you can disable DoH without uninstalling the profile. General -> VPN & device management -> DNS -> automatic.
pea 1y ago
I’ve been using the mullvad adblock via pure dns on iOS and I haven’t seen an ad in years. Is there a reason others are installing a separate app?
- uselesswords 1y ago
  Not everyone has mullvad, corporate VPNs can’t be run concurrently with mullvad, not all networks allow a VPN, not all sites can be accessed through a VPN like mullvad, not all countries allow VPNs, etc.
  - dongcarl 1y ago
    I think he's just talking about using Mullvad's [DNS servers](https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls), which work in most cases.
  - pea 1y ago
    Thanks. I don’t have mullvad either - anyone can point their dns at their Adblock dns without paying for their VPN
- subjectsigma 1y ago
  YouTube ads are notoriously tricky to block and can’t be blocked by any DNS-level ad blocker I have tried. If you don’t use YouTube then they probably work well for you, but a lot of people do use YouTube and want those ads gone
isaachawley 1y ago
Can we get a link directly to the project instead of this testflight page?
- medlazik 1y ago
  The news is "uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS" not "uBlock Origin Lite exists"
- altairprime 1y ago
  The project page newsworthy isn’t newsworthy in any obvious way on its own, though of course anyone (including OP) could post a link to it as a helpful comment. An iOS beta signup link for it is surprising news, though!
martin_a 1y ago
Project page should be this?!? https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home
- karimdaghari 1y ago
  It’s by the man himself (gorhill)
dom96 1y ago
Nice, seems to work pretty well
erdaltoprak 1y ago
Works fine so far! I wish they could add the main settings in the app view but that’s a minor point
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
scosman 1y ago
oh happy day
jen729w 1y ago
1Blocker has worked tremendously well for me for what feels like a decade now. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id1365531024 https://apps.apple.com/au/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id13655310...
- xnx 1y ago
  Look like that costs money though?
  - internet2000 1y ago
    It’s okay, you can afford it.
  - browningstreet 1y ago
    Yup and it works on my family plan. No brainer. It’s a set-it and forget-it install. Recommended.
  - gruez 1y ago
    It's absolutely bonkers that an adblocker needs to cost $15/year, when the actual filter lists are maintained by volunteers and there's (presumably) very little in the way of code changes needed.
    - el_benhameen 1y ago
      I dunno, I’m not a fan of paying for wrappers but I get a lot from 1Blocker and I’m happy to pay for it. As far as I know it’s just one dude who builds the app, and he spends a lot of time keeping it working in the face of YouTube tactics, etc.
      - gruez 1y ago
        >and he spends a lot of time keeping it working in the face of YouTube tactics, etc. Does he? Is he doing original research, or just copying whatever ublock origin/easylist puts out? After all, all the bypass methods are just javascript snippets that extensions inject into the page, so it's not like you have to spend much time porting to iOS or whatever.
HelloUsername 1y ago
Previous discussion on 13-may-2025: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43976898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43976898
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
elektor 1y ago
Is this any better than AdGuard? I’ve heard it’s best to avoid running both but unsure whether this version of uBlock is worth it.
- Squarex 1y ago
  uBlock is open source. Some people might object AdGuard Russian foundation, but they have distanced themselves from the conflict and employ people in Ukraine.
  - slowmotiony 1y ago
    Adguard is Russian? Thanks, just cancelled my subscription.
    - subjectsigma 1y ago
      So I did some research into this and it’s complicated. Seems as though the founder is Russian, the business is registered in Cyprus and is under EU jurisdiction, and the team is all over the world with the majority based in Russia. Relevant post on the topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/1lgxza0/seeking_clarity_on_some_things/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/1lgxza0/seeking_cl... That’s enough for me to not use Adguard, but wanted to clarify so others can make their own decision
- vehemenz 1y ago
  Adguard works better right now, at least for my purposes. I'm not sure why, but uBO Lite randomly stops working at times. I've had to fire up the test page (https://ublockorigin.github.io/uBOL-home/tests/test-filters.html https://ublockorigin.github.io/uBOL-home/tests/test-filters....) many times after enabling experimental filters, but it just doesn't seem to "stick."
- soraminazuki 1y ago
  gorhill has proven his integrity time and time again, and that's hard to beat. He works on uBO because he believes in it and not for profit. It's the one thing that I would value, especially in an ad blocker. This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with AdGuard though.
scosman 1y ago
Works on MacOS as well. Not just iOS.
- Squarex 1y ago
  Yes, but adblocking options on iOS are way more limited so it is more notable.

411 points by Squarex 1y ago

It’s fast but doesn’t block all ads for me.

It's a shame Firefox on iOS has failed/refused to support third-party content filters [1] since 2019. Just because they can't bring Gecko doesn't mean they shouldn't try to gain mindshare for the Mozilla Firefox brand on one of the biggest platforms, yet they refuse to put in the resources. 1: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/5198 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/5198

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
freeAgent 1y ago
Somewhat ironically, you can install and use the Firefox uBO extension on Orion for iOS. Orion/Kagi figured out how to do it before Firefox/Mozilla.
- eddythompson80 1y ago
  Last I tried Orion was a couple of months ago. I wouldn't really say "figured out" per se. Like I see the vision, I like the vision, but I'm waiting.
  - freeAgent 1y ago
    I mean that they figured out how to support (most) browser extensions on iOS in their browser, unlike Firefox. They haven’t figured everything out, but I do daily drive Orion on iOS. I still prefer Firefox on desktop due to stability (and Orion’s extension advantage in mobile doesn’t extend to desktop).
    - SG- 1y ago
      Not most, they have figured out a few and they don't work very well.
      - jeffhuys 1y ago
        Really all I wanted was uBlock and that works. That being said, after being my daily driver for almost a year, I went back to safari about a month ago with Wipr. 3x speedup and battery efficiency. Unfortunately, it became buggier instead of less buggy :( Still use it on mac tho - vertical tabs are a game-changer.
      - freeAgent 1y ago
        What do you need that doesn’t work?
        graynk 1y ago
        uBlock does not work. I don't know how people check that it works for them, but for me it definitely does not. Neither does e.g. https://getindie.wiki/ https://getindie.wiki/ - redirects don't work and I can't even get to the settings page from the menu (it does open once after install, but afterwards the button that's supposed to open it does nothing) UPD: Somehow installing indie wiki extension second time (without deleting it, just pressing "add to orion" a second time) partially fixed it. Redirects now works, banners are broken, showing "visit $destination$ instead"
- toofy 1y ago
  from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs. even without the bugs, after everything we’ve been through with crazy shit from closed sourced browser companies, the last thing i’d install would be orion/kagi. lol nuh uh. not a chance i’d trust an ai company with almost the entirety of my online existence—especially when they close off and hide what they’re doing.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs I use it as a daily driver on macOS. Not noticing the bugs anymore.
    - trws 1y ago
      I just started giving it a try again about a week ago, and I second this. A year ago it was nearly unusable for any extension outside their preferred list, now it’s largely a pleasant experience.
    - godelski 1y ago
      I use it on iPhone, it has lots of bugs. But it's worth it for the ad blocking
      - Larrikin 1y ago
        Why not just use AdGuard or PiHole?
        godelski 1y ago
        Those are DNS blockers. You're not going to block YouTube ads with those. Plus, I want blocking when I'm outside of my house. I don't always want to run everything through Tailscale and Apple doesn't always make that easy. It'll turn off your VPN quite frequently...
    - hoistbypetard 1y ago
      Do you use Bitwarden with it, by any chance? I daily drove it for quite a while, about mid 2022-late 2023. Poor bitwarden support plus a pile of paper cuts drove me away. When it worked as intended, I liked it, and I'm not opposed to paying for a good browser, but it was too buggy at that time for a subscription to feel like a good deal.
- graynk 1y ago
  except it doesn't work. but you can install it, yes. I want to like Orion but I've seen the same bugs for a year now.
  - Aerbil313 1y ago
    I'm using Orion as my daily driver on iOS mainly because of a Safari bug[1]. It used to be very buggy, had frequent app crashes for no reason at all but nowadays (since a year?) works pretty fine, even the UBO plugin works fine. 1: You can long tap and select "Download Linked File" on any link in Safari, including links that are forbidden by Content Restrictions, such as a news.ycombinator.com link from google search. Ping me if a Safari engineer sees this and fixes it!
    - hedora 1y ago
      I use Orion. I hit some crashes until I told it to autoclose tabs after a few days. I’d rather leave that off, but it’s a minor problem. I run three firefox plugins. They all work correctly.
    - akmann 1y ago
      What is it with said bug, that makes you use another browser because of it? Seems not like a big deal..
    - dylan604 1y ago
      A bug that happens for no reason? Aren’t these typically some sort of memory access violation, or am I just showing my age of what used to be the cause? I know nothing of iOS inner workings, but is illegal memory access still possible where this would be the behavior?
    - 0xCMP 1y ago
      Honestly, I was using Orion as a daily driver for a few months now and it's crazy unreliable in my experience. It also somehow uses more RAM than Chrome/Brave doing the same things, but with lots of tiny incompatibilities. I actually just switched my self back to chrome/brave for what I was using Orion for.
neuroelectron 1y ago
Apple really isn't that important.
rs186 1y ago
People who install Firefox on iOS is likely a very small number. If I were the project manager of Firefox, and with such limited resources and Google's cash going away any day, I would not put in any work either.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- HexDecOctBin 1y ago
  Sure, in which case they shouldn't have released it at all. A substandard product simply reduces the brand value.
  - rs186 1y ago
    Adblock feature!= Firefox on iOS
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
account42 1y ago
On the contrary, caring about their "brand" more than the actual Firefox software effectively describes what is wrong with Mozilla. iOS "Firefox" shouldn't be a thing in the first place - definitely not with such a misleading name.

azretd 1y ago

I have used Wipr for years, and now Wipr 2. Worth the small amount to keep intrusive ads, and it is cross platform.

walterbell 1y ago
Seconded. Small one-time license fee per major version.
VignuB 1y ago
One of the better install and forget it content blocker. The cherry on the top of the cake is that the developer is pretty responsive too.
wao0uuno 1y ago
Yeah Wiper 2 works really well but it slows down my iPhone 12 considerably. I guess there’s not enough ram for all these filters. Still faster than AdGuard.

temp0826 1y ago

I like that I can use uBlock Origin in Orion on iOS but interacting with any addon in it feels finicky, so I keep it at a pretty minimal level (compared to how aggressively I block on desktop, anyways). Anything else is definitely welcome though so looking forward to it.

ivanjermakov 1y ago

> Compatibility: Requires iOS 18.0 or later and visionOS 1.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision. Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple Silicon chip.

shpx 1y ago

It's annoying how this adds a puzzle piece icon next to the url all the time.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
gessha 1y ago
Yeah, that happens when you install any extension for Safari iOS. I’ve learned to ignore it.

seam_carver 1y ago

AdGuard doens't work for me so I'm excited on macOS

sandstrom 1y ago

On this topic, I have to recommend Hush! It is an excellent free, open-source and well-maintained app for iOS. https://oblador.github.io/hush/ https://oblador.github.io/hush/

junaru 1y ago
iOS Safari 18.5, installed and enabled in both normal and private modes. Opened a private tab and navigated to youtube.com - got cookie consent regardless. Closed every app, restarted safari fully - same results. Same on google maps. Uninstalled.
- gaws 1y ago
  I had the same experience and wouldn't recommend Hush.
Marsymars 1y ago
> On this topic, I have to recommend Hush! It is an excellent free, open-source and well-maintained app for iOS. Is it? I don’t see any maintainer activity is the past six months.
whstl 1y ago
It used to be nice but it breaks too many websites lately for me, unfortunately.

xoatic 1y ago

Works great both on my mac and iphone. Raymond rocks!

flixing 1y ago

arrghh it's full - how to get in?

TheDong 1y ago
First, clone this repository and run 'make mv3-safari' https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0b6866b2e5bd38d1871b/Makefile#L97 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0... Now you have the extension built, and you have two options for getting it onto your device: 1. Pay $100/year for a developer license, create your own testflight for yourself and your friends, upload it, there you go Or 2. Move to a european country to enable side-loading, pay $100/year for a developer license so you can sign it, and then sign + sideload it. (it's not really true sideloading, but if you're in the EU you can at least do it without testflight https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/ https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/ ) Oh, also, if you don't have a mac of some sort, you'll have to buy one. A mac mini is pretty cheap. You can also buy an android device and install any extension on firefox-for-android for free without paying apple, or anyone, $100/year.
- armchairhacker 1y ago
  You can install without paying $100/year. You have to reinstall the app every week but settings/data/etc. are preserved. You need a mac. https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/developers/tutorials/building-blocks/how-to-test-your-ios-application-on-a-real-device-html https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/developers/tutorials/build..., and enable “Developer Mode” in your phone’s settings.
  - extraduder_ire 1y ago
    You don't need to do a full reinstall each week, getting another provisioning cert works. You can run altstore on a machine on your network, or reprovision on the device itself to re-sign the app mostly automatically. The latter does use one of your account's five free app slots though. https://github.com/sohsatoh/ReProvision-Reborn https://github.com/sohsatoh/ReProvision-Reborn

pmdr 1y ago

Firefox Focus as a content filter has always worked for me on Safari. Nowadays I mostly use Brave, though.

dylan604 1y ago
I get too many anti-blockers when using Firefox focus to make it anything other than something a specialist would use as a daily driver

daakus 1y ago

Mostly using Wipr 2. Brave works very well but Safari seemed maybe slightly snappier (I know the browser engine is the same). Tried this but seems like it blocked less than Wipr 2 in a quick spot check.

swasheck 1y ago

i’m currently just using a nextdns profile after using adguard for a long time. i switched because i hoped that i would stop getting the annoying admiral modals telling me to turn off my ad blocker. do any of the these solutions trick the anti adblock solutions?

jjice 1y ago

uBlock is fantastic at what it does. I'm looking forward to this. I'm currently using both Wipr 2 and AdGuard together which has worked well. AdGuard allows user defined cosmetic filters that I've come to rely on more and more in the browser, and it makes certain mobile sites so much better. Will uBlock on iOS support this?

ents 1y ago
I run only Wipr2 and am happy with it, even if its $5 vs free, I'm happy to support a dev who makes a great app. I'll try UBOL for iOS when its available.
- jjice 1y ago
  Agreed, it blows my mind that more people aren't willing to pay $5-15 ($15 in my case of running Wipr 2 and AdGuard) to clean the web on your phone. The same people in my life who wouldn't think twice about a $15 cocktail. Nothing wrong with either, but damn the value equation is out of wack to me, it's just so worth it.

arthurtully 1y ago

AdGuard on iOS has worked for me for years in it's free form. It's script based so works like uBlock Origin on desktop.

Mistletoe 1y ago
Yep love it. Any reason to switch to this?
- vachina 1y ago
  Probably less reason to switch, because AdGuard can no longer command any price for their current offerings.
dawnerd 1y ago
I ended up just paying for it due to how much I use it. Their dns is also great at blocking I’m app ads.
- inquirerGeneral 1y ago
  [dead]
leokennis 1y ago
Liking AdGuard too. Both their DNS offering (basically a Pi-Hole in the cloud), and their iOS content blocker. Especially because I can subscribe to third party blocklists like HaGeZi, and AdGuard will load/transform them into Apple's custom content filtering syntax.

toastal 1y ago

I want any version of uBlock on the Sailfish OS browser

thenthenthen 1y ago

This beta is full :(((

TheDong 1y ago
The code's all open source: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0b6866b2e5bd38d1871b/Makefile#L97 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0... Just build your own copy, give apple $100/year for a developer license, move to a country in the EU, and then you can "sideload" this open-source code onto your device. You also need something running macOS.
- thenthenthen 1y ago
  Thanks for the giggle. I built a few apps back in the day, back then you could build and deploy on local device, no need to pay 100$, isn’t this still the case if you do not want to deploy on the appstore? Anyway, your comment is worthy of a xkcd.
- viktorcode 1y ago
  … or sideboard for free for a week.
  - saintfire 1y ago
    Not sure if this was a sarcastic jab or an genuine proposed solution but I laughed either way.
- antgame11 1y ago
  *Purchase $100/year apple certificate or move to a country in the EU. You can sideload for free for a week or you can buy a 3rd party certificate for $20 dollars. For free you can use sidestore (anywhere, not just the EU) for free, but you need to connect to a WiFi network once a week. You can also build with github actions without a mac

rsync 1y ago

It is deeply disappointing how poorly Apple implements privacy tools and technologies. To wit: It is 2025 and you cannot configure a DoH endpoint in Safari on either iOS or OSX. Further, enabling DoH in iOS involves an experts-only plist file download which has many esoteric failure modes that are difficult to track and have poor (nonexistent ?) documentation. Finally, any regular person (like my wife) will have an almost immediate need to toggle adblocking DNS on and off for (weird site that breaks) but, of course, that is not possible without going through the entire plist file workflow twice (once to remove (not disable) the existing profile and once to re-download it). Ridiculous. Embarrassing.

viktorcode 1y ago
I might be misunderstanding your problem, but if you want to easily switch DNS there is an iOS app I was using. Sadly, don’t remember what it was called, but I’m sure an AppStore search will yield possible solutions
- inquirerGeneral 1y ago
  [dead]
- rsync 1y ago
  We should not need an app - nor a fraught trust model and software supply chain analysis - to set a basic network setting. I appreciate your help but I'm not downloading some rando app to set a DNS server. Your child is getting flagged/downvoted for pointing out that Android has actual DNS settings and that person is correct.
  - viktorcode 1y ago
    Maybe we should not have the app to do that, but we can have it and personally I missed that one tap convenience on my Mac.
oktoberpaard 1y ago
FWIW: you can disable DoH without uninstalling the profile. General -> VPN & device management -> DNS -> automatic.

pea 1y ago

I’ve been using the mullvad adblock via pure dns on iOS and I haven’t seen an ad in years. Is there a reason others are installing a separate app?

uselesswords 1y ago
Not everyone has mullvad, corporate VPNs can’t be run concurrently with mullvad, not all networks allow a VPN, not all sites can be accessed through a VPN like mullvad, not all countries allow VPNs, etc.
- dongcarl 1y ago
  I think he's just talking about using Mullvad's [DNS servers](https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls), which work in most cases.
- pea 1y ago
  Thanks. I don’t have mullvad either - anyone can point their dns at their Adblock dns without paying for their VPN
subjectsigma 1y ago
YouTube ads are notoriously tricky to block and can’t be blocked by any DNS-level ad blocker I have tried. If you don’t use YouTube then they probably work well for you, but a lot of people do use YouTube and want those ads gone

isaachawley 1y ago

Can we get a link directly to the project instead of this testflight page?

medlazik 1y ago
The news is "uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS" not "uBlock Origin Lite exists"
altairprime 1y ago
The project page newsworthy isn’t newsworthy in any obvious way on its own, though of course anyone (including OP) could post a link to it as a helpful comment. An iOS beta signup link for it is surprising news, though!

martin_a 1y ago

Project page should be this?!? https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

karimdaghari 1y ago
It’s by the man himself (gorhill)

dom96 1y ago

Nice, seems to work pretty well

erdaltoprak 1y ago

Works fine so far! I wish they could add the main settings in the app view but that’s a minor point

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

scosman 1y ago

oh happy day

jen729w 1y ago

1Blocker has worked tremendously well for me for what feels like a decade now. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id1365531024 https://apps.apple.com/au/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id13655310...

xnx 1y ago
Look like that costs money though?
- internet2000 1y ago
  It’s okay, you can afford it.
- browningstreet 1y ago
  Yup and it works on my family plan. No brainer. It’s a set-it and forget-it install. Recommended.
- gruez 1y ago
  It's absolutely bonkers that an adblocker needs to cost $15/year, when the actual filter lists are maintained by volunteers and there's (presumably) very little in the way of code changes needed.
  - el_benhameen 1y ago
    I dunno, I’m not a fan of paying for wrappers but I get a lot from 1Blocker and I’m happy to pay for it. As far as I know it’s just one dude who builds the app, and he spends a lot of time keeping it working in the face of YouTube tactics, etc.
    - gruez 1y ago
      >and he spends a lot of time keeping it working in the face of YouTube tactics, etc. Does he? Is he doing original research, or just copying whatever ublock origin/easylist puts out? After all, all the bypass methods are just javascript snippets that extensions inject into the page, so it's not like you have to spend much time porting to iOS or whatever.

HelloUsername 1y ago

Previous discussion on 13-may-2025: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43976898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43976898

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

elektor 1y ago

Is this any better than AdGuard? I’ve heard it’s best to avoid running both but unsure whether this version of uBlock is worth it.

Squarex 1y ago
uBlock is open source. Some people might object AdGuard Russian foundation, but they have distanced themselves from the conflict and employ people in Ukraine.
- slowmotiony 1y ago
  Adguard is Russian? Thanks, just cancelled my subscription.
  - subjectsigma 1y ago
    So I did some research into this and it’s complicated. Seems as though the founder is Russian, the business is registered in Cyprus and is under EU jurisdiction, and the team is all over the world with the majority based in Russia. Relevant post on the topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/1lgxza0/seeking_clarity_on_some_things/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/1lgxza0/seeking_cl... That’s enough for me to not use Adguard, but wanted to clarify so others can make their own decision
vehemenz 1y ago
Adguard works better right now, at least for my purposes. I'm not sure why, but uBO Lite randomly stops working at times. I've had to fire up the test page (https://ublockorigin.github.io/uBOL-home/tests/test-filters.html https://ublockorigin.github.io/uBOL-home/tests/test-filters....) many times after enabling experimental filters, but it just doesn't seem to "stick."
soraminazuki 1y ago
gorhill has proven his integrity time and time again, and that's hard to beat. He works on uBO because he believes in it and not for profit. It's the one thing that I would value, especially in an ad blocker. This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with AdGuard though.

scosman 1y ago

Works on MacOS as well. Not just iOS.

Squarex 1y ago
Yes, but adblocking options on iOS are way more limited so it is more notable.