iOS 9 Safari supports content blocking!

[Ichinisan]

http://gizmodo.com/why-apple-decided-to-block-ads-on-the-same-day-it-start-1731252095

This has been absolutely NEEDED for a long time to tame Safari's constant crashing. I suspect this forum is going to work 100% better for me now. I'll make an exception for *anandtech.com if it doesn't help with the crashing, but I'm fairly certain it will help immensely.

It's especially needed If you have an iOS device with only 512MB RAM and supports iOS 9 (iPhone 4s, iPad mini 1, iPad 2, iPod touch 5th gen), or if you have a 64-bit iOS device with 1GB RAM (iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPod touch 6th gen, iPad Air 1, iPad mini 2/3).

[edit]
Unfortunately, it requires an A7 processor or newer -- supposedly because it hits the CPU too hard. Really, I think the A6 on the iPhone 5/5c and A6X on the iPad 4th gen should be able to handle it.

Well, Peace blocker was pulled by its own author. Supposedly, he felt guilty about profiting while lots of web sites lost their only source of revenue (ads). I feel no guilt at all about using a tool like this because these ad network scripts were crashing my devices constantly and making them unusable...including this very site. Anyway, I found some cases of it blocking things it shouldn't; which almost never happened with Adblock Plus on PCs.

It sounds like Purify Blocker is a better alternative.

Whether you get Purify, Crystal, or any other content blocker, you must go to Settings > Safari > Content Blocking to enable it.

I haven't experienced the mysterious crashes even once since I installed a content blocker. DO IT.

 

[PricklyPete]

Marco? Is that you?

 

[blairharrington]

The first thing I noticed upon my return to the iPhone last December was how God awful Safari had become with ads. Yes, this was absolutely necessary.

I'm using Crystal which was free when I downloaded it but now costs money?

 

[Ichinisan]

The first thing I noticed upon my return to the iPhone last December was how God awful Safari had become with ads. Yes, this was absolutely necessary.

I'm using Crystal which was free when I downloaded it but now costs money?

Was that an entirely separate web browser? ...or an extension for Mobile Safari?

The content blocking API seems to work with Safari webview components within other apps too.

 

[Ichinisan]

Marco? Is that you?

I don't know who "Marco" is, except the historical explorer and the presidential candidate.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Good news for iOS users, as ads have gotten very annoying.

Bad news for online content providers and even Google, who made a lot of money delivering ads to Safari.

The theory I have heard is the intent is to push content creators to apps (that Apple then controls and gets a piece of) over websites.

I don't use ad blockers myself normally but I might on my iPad.

 

[Eug]

This has been known for months but up until now the actual plugins weren't available. I'll have to try Peace.

 

[blairharrington]

Was that an entirely separate web browser? ...or an extension for Mobile Safari?

The content blocking API seems to work with Safari webview components within other apps too.

http://crystalapp.co/

 

[Eug]

So which one or which ones to use? Crystal is 99¢ and Peace is $2.99, so cost isn't a big issue. I just want to buy whichever is best.

Others? I figure there must be several that have gone live in the past day.

I'm thinking this will help with the iPad 2 (which has the lowly A5).

It may also possibly help with the rendering bug where page sections need to be re-rendered when you scroll.

 

[Midwayman]

So which one or which ones to use? Crystal is 99¢ and Peace is $2.99, so cost isn't a big issue. I just want to buy whichever is best.

Others? I figure there must be several that have gone live in the past day.

I'm thinking this will help with the iPad 2 (which has the lowly A5).

It may also possibly help with the rendering bug where page sections need to be re-rendered when you scroll.

crystal was free yesterday :biggrin:

 

[Ichinisan]

Others?

Open the App Store and go to Top Charts.

In the "Paid" section:
#1: Peace ($2.99)
#5: Crystal ($0.99)
#10: Purify Blocker ($3.99)
#19: Blockr ($0.99)

Of course, you'll find user reviews for all of them.

 

[Red Storm]

It's good to see this, but is there not a good free one? I don't mind paying for apps that are useful, but on Android I just load up Firefox and use an ad block extension (never mind all you can do with root).

 

[Eug]

I just bought Peace on my iPhone 5s. It looks good, BUT...

...it doesn't support the iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2, iPad mini, iPhone 4S, or iPhone 5.

And neither does Crystal.

I guess these apps require a minimum of the A7.

Dammit.

 

[mmntech]

Bad news for online content providers and even Google, who made a lot of money delivering ads to Safari.

The theory I have heard is the intent is to push content creators to apps (that Apple then controls and gets a piece of) over websites.

Most likely. Apple of course just happens to have their own ad network (iAd) which I'm sure is exempt from these new filters due to some sort of "bug". :sneaky:

The ever growing popularity of ad blockers is 100% the content industry's fault though. Having worked in the media, I'm fully aware that it is a business that needs to be profitable. The ads are the trade off for having free content. At the same time, online advertising can be, and often is, highly intrusive. Data mining, obnoxious popups, unskippable commercials that are longer than the video you want to watch, hijacking of ad networks to install hit and run malware. Not to mention the increasing ad time in other mediums. I think people are just getting fed up of being marketed at constantly. And now they've discovered a way to put the brakes on it.

Netflix has spoiled us all.

 

[Eug]

Note that in-app ads still work fine. Dammit #2.

BTW I had read somewhere a while back that these ad blockers as implemented for iOS 9 might not be viable on certain hardware because of performance issues. However, it seems that SoCs below the A7 are specifically excluded, which sounds more like Apple restricting the API to A7 and above. Part of it may be for performance reasons, but I wonder if it's another example of arbitrary restrictions to force upgrades.

In any case it sounds like my choice to keep my iPhone 5s but replace the iPhone 5 with an iPhone 6s may have been the right one, at least from an iOS 9 API perspective.

 

[Ichinisan]

I just bought Peace on my iPhone 5s. It looks good, BUT...

...it doesn't support the iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2, iPad mini, iPhone 4S, or iPhone 5.

And neither does Crystal.

I guess these apps require a minimum of the A7.

Dammit.

Whaaaat?!

So many devices in that category could really use this

The iPhone 5/5c should have enough horsepower to handle it. Oh well. I guess this is how Apple enforces planned obsolescence.

 

[Eug]

Which ad blocker to choose:

http://www.cultofmac.com/389394/how-to-pick-the-right-ios-9-content-blocker-for-you/

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Interesting. Purify's creator is the new maintainer of the uBlock script (not uBlock origin).

 

[Phynaz]

Just bought Purify. Wow, it makes my iPad Air faster than my desktop.

 

[Ichinisan]

Just bought Purify. Wow, it makes my iPad Air faster than my desktop.

Which iPad?

[edit]
Missed that. Did you ninja edit?

 

[Eug]

I would assume iPad Air since he said iPad Air.

BTW, Purify claims to be faster...

...but with Peace it's already lightning fast with my iPad Air 2.

Oh and Purify also requires an A7.

And yes, Peace does break www.reuters.com

 

[Eug]

Dammit! We just can't win. Both Peace and Purify re-introduce the blank scrolling bug.

This is the bug where when you scroll a page up or down, the area off the screen that you were looking at is blank and needs to re-render. This can take a second or three. This was quite prominent in iOS 9.0 (and 8.4) for Safari, but diminished in iOS 9.1. However, as soon as I turn on either Purify or Peace, the bug returns in full force.

For example, if I load this very thread page in the native Safari, once everything renders and the ad loads, I can scroll up and down super fast. However, if I turn on either Purify or Peace, as soon as I start to scroll, I get huge swaths of blank grey screen that take a couple of seconds to render. It makes it impossible to scroll fast.

So right now I have turned both off, but I have a menu item to allow loading in Peace if desired.

 

[Ichinisan]

Strange. I'm familiar with that problem, and it's much better with 9.1 (except that it keeps showing very old versions of pages when I swipe back, ever since the .1 update).

My iPhone 6 Plus is on 9.1 public beta with Peace, viewing the forums in Safari in desktop mode.

I scrolled this thread rapidly from top-to-bottom and back to the top again. I didn't see the gray area waiting to redraw. It was perfect.

 

[Eug]

Here is a video I made to document the blank scrolling issue in Safari, when Peace or Purify is active.

https://vimeo.com/139671069

---

BTW, this is a separate issue but I've also noticed that bug you mentioned above where very, very old versions of the page show up when I swipe back. Very strange. And yes, I believe that is just with iOS 9.1.

 

[kpkp]

Note that in-app ads still work fine. Dammit #2.

That just points out the hypocrisy of Apple in this situation. I bet if they would enable adblocker in Safari by default, they would have all kinds of legal issues around the world, but since the user does it, it's all fine, but the hypocrisy remains.