Indie Content Blocker for iOS 9

[laura]

This week’s roundup has more on iOS 9’s content blocking capabilities, and looks at Crystal, a content blocker that blocks third party scripts.

We were wondering if anyone knew of any free and open, and/or community-driven content blocking projects? Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an Indie Content Blocker?!

[dev_anubis]

I use AdAway on my Android devices, though it's basically just a wrapper for the hosts file to filter out access to certain domains. it's not fancy enough to remove HTML ads in-browser, but AdBlockPlus can deal with that

[matthanns]

There's Bluhell Firewall and Karma Blocker that are worth a look.

[dylan]

BlockParty seems to be free & open source and has a JSON block list that anyone can contribute to too - sounds promising.

[4eb4db0e]

uBlock Origin might be of interest. Free, open, cross platform, and lightweight.

[Thomas]

There is also Peace and Purify

Anyone tried any of the above/ can reccomend any?

[bruno]

Going to try Peace myself, once I get around to updating my iPhone.

Mostly because I trust Marco as a developer, but will get back with my findings later

[adamprocter]

I tried Peace as it uses Ghostery's database - was great but Marco has since pulled that app as he was not happy being the lead figure / gatekeeper in the war on the advertising biz model. Shame though. http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good

[bruno]

Yup. Respect his decision though. There is no way to whitelist some trackers yourself without calling the suspicion of corruption over yourself.

Beyond that, I'm going to have to try either Crystal or Purify next. However, I recently decided that my current device is going to keep being an 8.4.1 testdevice, so no purchases yet for me.

[adamprocter]

I was hoping for the addition like Ghostery to be able to white list specific trackers so you could allow the ads or trackers you agreed with, The DECK, Typekit etc. Shame as at least you knew his app would be solid.

[bruno]

The problem with that approach is that it only works for the more knowledgable people. And, it's still a hassle and impacts the web with articles and pleas to please 'whitelist this site' or 'allow this tracker'. That wouldn't be a good solution.

There will be many more tracker blockers around, so we really aren't impacted that much by the removal of Peace. Marco isn't the only decent developer out there

[adamprocter]

The real issue is the content makers need to start figuring out business model's that are not about advertisers and the trackers, it is over for them and good job too I say.

If they want to come back with decent ads and some sensible opt in stuff then great, however I suggest they need to come up with better ways to finance the content creators. Ads was the easy way now they have to think a bit and provide a decent experience.

Ad Blocking and the Future of the Web

[laura]

This is a really good piece on the case for adblockers: The ethical case for ad-blocking

[avolve]

Any updates/experiences? I was also looking at Peace, now hoping for a similar release since it was pulled...

[Thomas]

I bought Blockr (99p).

Seems to work and has good customisation. I can't attest to speed as I don't have anything else installed to compare it to.

One thing I will say with ad blockers in iOS is that they only appear to work when browsing from Safari itself. So opening a page from the Twitter app (running safari from inside Twitter), ads will not be blocked. I don't know if that's limited to Blockr or all blockers in general?

[bruno]

I bought 1Blocker myself and am kinda happy. I do get blank pages a lot though which I suspect is due to the filtering, but reloading the page fixes it again.

[adamprocter]

I am now using Mozillas Focus - will Apple implement 3rd party browser support though that is not a iOS 10 update as I am now using Firefox for iOS which is great.