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Comment by internet2000

12 hours ago

In case anyone here missed it, there's a native Ublock Origin for Safari. It works great → https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...

53 comments

internet2000

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simcop2387  11 hours ago

Mostly so, it's got all the limitations of Manifest V3 which prevents it from doing a good bit of blocking, https://ublockorigin.com/#manifest-v3-section

In particular:

* Cannot use all filter lists simultaneously (rule limits apply)

* No cosmetic filtering in the default mode

* No scriptlet injection by default

* Limited dynamic filtering capabilities

* Requires broader host permissions upfront

But it's definitely still better than no adblockers

  • kqp  7 hours ago

    Cosmetic filtering and script injection both work fine, they’re just off by default. Everybody works around rule count limits by making the one app register itself as like six different “Safari extensions”, it’s just clutter not a limitation. It requires no permissions up front and later permissions only granularly and rarely, for me only on YouTube, while the Firefox version does require unrestricted access to all domains. I have never seen a “dynamic filtering capability” it lacks or an ad it can’t block, do you have any examples?

    • w-ll  1 hour ago

      yea but also idk if its OT but i pay for apple news premium and its just all ads in safari. like whats the point, like its cheaper to bundle and share with my family. but why am i see ads withing News app when i pay this should be a given.

      1 reply →

  • snazz  9 hours ago

    What I like about uBO Lite in Safari is that I can use it without allowing it access to any of my data (it works in a purely declarative mode if you want). Even if it’s unlikely that uBO would be sold to a sketchy company, at least this provides protection against any supply chain attacks.

    • hendersoon  7 hours ago

      Yes, that was Google’s justification for killing MV2. It isn’t wrong, of course, but I insist on defining my own security posture and I prioritize adblocking.

  • gorhill  3 hours ago

    Cosmetic-based filters and scriptlet injection-based filters work by default, they are enforced in _Optimal_ and _complete_ filtering modes. The default filtering mode is _optimal_.

  • Asmod4n  4 hours ago

    You can have virtually unlimited amount of rules, its just a limit per list, the number of lists aint really limited.

  • armadyl  10 hours ago

    Regarding the cosmetic filtering and scriptlet injection, are these even relevant? Most uBO users already give full access to the extension, so they'll probably do the same to uBOL to (most permissions + complete filtering mode). So basically they will have these features anyway.

armadyl  11 hours ago

FYI uBlock Origin Lite on iOS is inferior to AdGuard and (I think) Wipr as it's just a WebExtension, so it'll only block ads within Safari itself.

AdGuard and Wipr use both the Web Extension and Content Blocker APIs, so they'll block ads in all web views system wide on top of within Safari itself.

However as far as trustworthiness goes, uBlock is (imo) #1.

  • Barbing  10 hours ago

    wBlock by an MIT student is open source and seems (just!) about as trustworthy as uBlock, though of course without the track record. Light & fast, especially to update.

      “wBlock runs entirely within Safari's content blocking API. There's no data collection, no tracking, and no system-level extensions that can monitor your browsing.“

    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wblock/id6746388723 / GH: https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlock

    On AdGuard: can act as your PiHole and allow you to see network requests when run in non-native mode.

    • armadyl  10 hours ago

      Nice, last time I heard about wblock felt like years ago and I'm not sure why I didn't consider it.

      These days I don't run on-device adblock, I just do DNS filtering for the most part but I'll check it out, not sure I wanna keep tunneling all my DNS queries to ControlD perpetually lol

    • tyre  8 hours ago

      No offense to the author, but I don't trust a college kid the same way I trust the team behind uBlock. The latter have a well-established track record with substantial external eyes (including Firefox directly.)

      3 replies →

    • mmooss  9 hours ago

      Just a comment on the narrative:

      > wBlock by an MIT student is open source

      It's funny to me that some find that narrative appealing.

      Here's another narrative: Many of those MIT students go on to be SV founders and employees who build, operate, and make millions or billions from the mass surveillance and ad industry. And I'm sure some participated in FOSS in college - what better way to build your resume for the surveillance/ad industry?

      (I'm not commenting on the wBlock developer; I think all such narratives are deceiving and should be ignored.)

      2 replies →

  • anon7000  10 hours ago

    I think Wipr is also very trustworthy. It’s developed by an indie dev who’s responsive over email, and gives you a lot for free. And it has a $5/yr subscription (or one time payment) that unlocks system-wide ad blocking, not just in web views.

    I’ve found it to work exceptionally well after trying other free adblockers.

    • armadyl  7 hours ago

      Yeah my comment wasn't me trying to say they weren't trustworthy, I've actually purchased both AdGuard and Wipr but I stick with AdGuard since I felt like it was better. And the dev of Wipr seems to be transparent for sure.

      However of the three I trust AdGuard the least, for no objective reasons.

  • ronjouch  10 hours ago

    uBOL bug report: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/438 , from discussion https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/discussions/408#di...

        uBOL doesn't work in apps, it works only in Safari, it's a pure browser extension, the "app" part of uBOL is an Apple requirement just for the sake of installing the extension.

    Copied from #408:

    uBOL will stay a webextensions-based browser extension, I do not plan to go further than this, I do not have the time and motivation to take on more work than I already do.
    What people may ask though is that Apple maybe supports webextensions in WebApp, if that is possible at all.

    I hope this changes, it’s what keeps me on AdGuard :-/

    • yesb  10 hours ago

      I have been happy with my workaround for this issue which is using uBOL along side the AdGuard content blocker extensions (main AdGuard web extension disabled).

  • tensor  6 hours ago

    FWIW AdGuard dev team is in Russia. Letting them proxy all your traffic is probably not the wisest move.

    • microtonal  6 hours ago

      If you use the Safari adblocker, it will use rule lists, not proxy all traffic.

      That said, IMO on Safari Wipr all the way (though I use Brave Origin with its built-in blocker now, which is stellar).

odo1242  11 hours ago

Also, if you use Orion Browser, they did implement the full Manifest v2 extension spec on top of WebKit, which lets you use full uBlock origin directly.

  • SoftTalker  10 hours ago

    This is why I started using the Orion browser. It's not perfect, I've had a few freezes and occasional weird behavior but well within the "tolerable" range for me, and not noticably worse than the glitches that any ad blocker causes on some sites.

  • jorvi  10 hours ago

    Does that really matter if virtually no one is going to develop extensions according to the Manifest v2 spec?

    Developing for that spec means your extension is incompatible with idk, 98% of the browser market?

Nextgrid  11 hours ago

This is not a true uBlock Origin. It's a best effort attempt at converting UBO rules to Apple's declarative blocking framework, but is nowhere near as capable as actual UBO.