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thatJohann

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 5, 2013
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Given the amount of content blockers coming out for iOS 9, I figured having a wiki thread to list them all here and post impressions will be useful for all of us to keep us all informed.

Note: iOS 9 Content Blockers only work with 64-bit devices. The following iOS 9-capable devices do not support Content Blockers: iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPod Touch 5th generation, iPad 2, iPad "3", iPad "4".

Here are all the content blockers I'm aware of so far:
Open Source (For people with 32-bit iPhones and a penchant for DIY)
  • BlockParty (Github, App Store offering to come)
  • Adios (Abandoned, Developer joined Purify)
Please add more as you discover them to the list and link to their sites or twitter for more info. Also post impressions!

TIP: In Mobile Safari tap and hold the Reload arrow to get an option to reload the page without Content Blockers.

Reviews for some of the above-mentioned blockers can be found here.
 
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thatJohann

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 5, 2013
1,583
1,633
NYC
In the last couple of days I've been beta testing 4 different content blockers via Test Flight:

Freedom, Adamant, Silentium and Blockr

As of now, my preferred one is Blockr. Specifically because I find it handles the empty white space where ads used to be better. It removes that white space like the banner ad was never there. The other ones usually leave a blank white space where the banner ad was.
 
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Applerx

macrumors member
Sep 12, 2015
37
6
I have been testing 1Blocker and Blockr.

While 1Blocker offers more options, I'll buy and stick with Blockr as it works perfectly for me while 1Blocker breaks some of the sites I visit frequently.
 
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Dephibio

macrumors 6502
Oct 3, 2013
267
215
Purify developer claims that his content blocker is faster than Crystal. We'll find out soon enough.

CO10cNhUAAATNRg.jpg-large.jpg
 

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,210
10,148
San Jose, CA
Purify developer claims that his content blocker is faster than Crystal. We'll find out soon enough.
It's amazing how much guerilla markting there is for these adblockers. Seems like the developers are expecting a big bonanza. :)

People should realize that all of them use the same blocking mechanism, meaning that the actual blocking is performed by Webkit, not the blocker apps. They only provide the filtering rules. The differences will be in the user-configurable customization options and the amount of work the developers put into optimizing the rule sets for Webkit. I bet we'll see a wave of cheap blocker apps that simply take some existing rule set (like Easylist) and translate it to the Apple format, and only a few developers will take the time to create optimized rule sets to make sure they can be executed efficiently by Webkit ...
 

dilap

macrumors 6502a
Apr 18, 2014
813
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London, UK
In the last couple of days I've been beta testing 4 different content blockers via Test Flight:

Freedom, Adamant, Silentium and Blockr

As of now, my preferred one is Blockr. Specifically because I find it handles the empty white space where ads used to be better. It removes that white space like the banner ad was never there. The other ones usually leave a blank white space where the banner ad was.

How do you test Blockr?
 

0000111

macrumors member
Jul 24, 2014
97
18
so the option to turn on content blocker only shows up when you install the APP?

Serious ? Yes you must install a content blocker before you can enable it


I’m also having this issue on 9.1 PB ... there is no “content blocker” option in my preferences. Am I doing it wrong?

EDIT:

yep, you have to download one first, then the setting magically appears in Preferences > Safari > Content Blockers.
 
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lemimouth

macrumors regular
Feb 14, 2015
196
155
simply take some existing rule set (like Easylist) and translate it to the Apple format, and only a few developers will take the time to create optimized rule sets to make sure they can be executed efficiently by Webkit ...

That's exactly what i'm doing with my own (for personal use only, will never release it on app store) content blocker. I use the script created by snoack (https://github.com/snoack/abp2blocklist/tree/compatible) to convert easylist to json compatible with iOS. How does this compare to an "optimized" list ? I would be interested to see real use performance comparaison
 
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