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uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

apps.apple.com

141–150 of 464 posts

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#141
post #9

I've been puzzled reading previous discussions about Safari where people acted as if it doesn't have good ad-blocking, just because the brand name extension they're familiar with wasn't available. There has been very good ad-blocking available on Safari for a long time (both macOS and iOS) using for example AdGuard.

The same thing happened when Chrome dropped mv2 support and a brand name ad blocking extention never upgraded beyond mv2.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#142
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mind-boggling, how in this day and age search functions can still be soooo bad in so many places on the web and inside applications. At the very least a 100% substring match should be very visible in the result. If not at the top, then there should be sorting criteria, to make it appear at the top, so that one can sane-ify the search result, when it is not sane. A good example for bad search is the windows star…

In Apple's case we can safely assume it's intentionally like that to make the most money.

Its great for the app store if people mistakenly download the wrong app. They can increase the total downloads stats for more than one app that way. And it creates more "engagement' with the app store. They don't care that it's "forced" engagement

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#143
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah I think they’re just bad at search, macOS Spotlight search has to be the most slow janky search I have ever used.

Which I find really sad because at one point OSX had search quality that was really satisfying. That was maybe twenty years ago for me.

Spotlight was a revelation in Tiger. I don’t know exactly when it degraded but it’s a damn shame how annoying it’s become.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#144

I just searched within the (edit: iOS App Store) App Store app for ublock origin lite “ublock origin lite” For the unquoted search, there are twelve different apps/items returned above it - you really have to scroll down to find it at number 13. Even for the quoted search, it’s returned in fourth place. More interestingly the second time I searched with quoted it’s in third place, and the third time of searching the…

I get shown a fucking ad for Google Chrome when searching for “ublock origin lite” in the iOS app store.

Same. It never used to show them. It only started recently. But it's only partially letting some ads through. Youtube video ads are still blocked which is good.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to actually write one before, it's incredibly frustrating experience, as you still need to have some weird native glue code in in Swift/Obj-C. And everything is under-documented, as it the true Apple Experience. (I forgot the details. I can find the code on github, maybe.) If you ask yourself why there are so little Safari extensions, this is why. edit: I look at the code now... I needed to wrestle with BOTH c…

[EDIT to clarify: here I’m talking about writing a javascript based extension, not a content blocker] That’s not my experience (in the admittedly only browser extension I’ve ever written). After getting it working to my satisfaction in Chrome and Firefox, I created the Safari macOS/iOS versions by running $ xcrun safari-web-extension-converter --bundle-identifier . in my repo. Then I opened xcode, configured the sign…

Interesting. Maybe I tried to do something too complex, I don't remember.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...

Here they talk about the "container" that needs to be in Swift/Obj-C. I remember I used to have some problems with the "container" application

I think the issue starts to be when you want your extension/app to have any kind of settings that is retained? I don't remember, really.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#146
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah I think they’re just bad at search, macOS Spotlight search has to be the most slow janky search I have ever used.

Which I find really sad because at one point OSX had search quality that was really satisfying. That was maybe twenty years ago for me.

Yes. Spotlight search for the Application launcher use-case was close to the speed and quality of LaunchBar (which still works that way of course) when Apple first introduced the command-space shortcut, on vastly slower “oughts” computers. Today it’s much slower and less consistent.

However we know that they could easily do a simple search effectively because Apple’s Launchpad has a perfect app search built in. If you give Launchpad a global shortcut you can press saf and be assured it will instantly open safari every time. Of course, LaunchBar (no affiliation, but I’ve been using it for 22 years) still beats that in every way.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#147
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not mind boggling at all. It’s controlled by one entity that is not optimizing for good search, but rather its own financial gain.

What's the entity in question for KDE search?

KDE search doesn't ignore your search terms like many search engines.

But it also doesn't let you choose which version of emacs is the first result for "emacs" so it has a separate set of problems.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#148
post #116
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Firefox Focus as an ad blocker for Safari on iOS for several years now. I don't actually use it as my browser, I just use Safari as normal, but it integrates with Safari, and seems to work well enough.

Wipr 2. One time payment for macOS and mobile. And it even blocks ads on YouTube (when watched via Safari).

One time until Wipr 3, coming from a Wipr 1/2 user, just to be clear.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#149
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, as a person then uses both occasionally... I feel like they're pretty on-par? Is the osx search performing so much better on your end? If so, in results or speed? Because for me, both osx and windows searches leave me annoyed anytime I try to use them, it's so bad that I usually prefer to use CLI tools on both platforms ... Or were you just saying it cuz it's funny?

On the azure win11 desktop I am using professionally (only windows I use) a large fraction of the time you can't even search anything because the windows menu just freeze.

While it’s clearly not everybody, in my and a number of other users’ personal onedrives, search hasn’t worked since May. Zero results for any search in any context. No response from MS other than essentially “yep! Sorry! Working on it! Promise! In the interim, try just remembering where everything is maybe! lol!”
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