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uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

apps.apple.com

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Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#361

Post by observationist »

concinds wrote: post #348

People should be way more upset at the fact that Safari adblocking today is still inferior to even MV3 Google Chrome. Apple's implementation of declarativeNetRequest was semi-broken until the very latest iOS 18.6. Apple can do the bare minimum, years after everyone else, and barely get called out. The Reality Distortion Field is the enemy. Also funny that other devs had the gall to make people pay (sometimes subscrip…

The solution is trivial. Don't make Apple applications, don't use Apple products. Build for open protocols. Otherwise, go through life as if Apple didn't exist.

Walled gardens are an abomination.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#362

Post by pdntspa »

concinds wrote: post #348

People should be way more upset at the fact that Safari adblocking today is still inferior to even MV3 Google Chrome. Apple's implementation of declarativeNetRequest was semi-broken until the very latest iOS 18.6. Apple can do the bare minimum, years after everyone else, and barely get called out. The Reality Distortion Field is the enemy. Also funny that other devs had the gall to make people pay (sometimes subscrip…

Screw Chrome; both Safari and Chrome are inferior to Firefox' adblocking toolkit

And for the record Ublock Origin used to have a Safari extension. But that was forced to be phased out a couple of OS updates ago for reasons I can't remember.

In any case, as someone who will not touch Google's spyware browser with a ten-foot pole, it's nice to have a flagship alternative to Firefox that does decent adblocking.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#363

Post by nicce »

EasyMark wrote: post #351

I get the best of all worlds by using Orion, I can use uBlock Origin (the Firefox version) and also get WebKit which Safari uses. Orion seemed unstable for me, but I gave it another shot a couple of months ago, and it has been as stable as Safari for me. Glad to hear someone gave Safari another AdBlock alternative though, the more, the merrier.

I don’t know. I have tried to use Orion for long time but it has too many bugs. I try it like few times week. Also, this extension seems to work better than uBlock in Origin.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#364

Post by morphle »

chronogamous wrote: post #331
morphle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not available in the Netherlands/Europe.

Had no problem finding and downloading it from the AppStore; then again, it's been ten hours since you posted, so maybe it has only just popped up in the last couple of hours for people in the Netherlands.

Yep, indeed. It now downloads in the Apps store for The Netherlands

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#365

Post by mathiaspoint »

duskwuff wrote: post #323
xandrius wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you never got gatekept by Apple from accessing a feature unless you had a specific version of the OS? Heck, even macbooks get killed every year by not allowing them to build for newer iOS versions. The whole point of Apple, one could say, IS to make sure to forcibly make you update to access a new feature. That way either you can update or you've got to buy a brand-new device.

I'm curious what you believe the alternative is - "new features magically appear in released versions of an operating system without the software being updated"?

Seems to work fine on Linux unless you stick to kernels that are multiple decades old.

Whether it's technical or social the situation on iOS is clearly inferior.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#366

Post by badosu »

lulzury wrote: post #296
badosu wrote: post #294

I don't understand why someone, with some technical education, would use any chromium based browser instead of firefox, any ideas?

That’s a pretty limited way of looking at the world: “Why would someone only do x instead of y?” Part of learning to understand others means developing cognitive flexibility.

It would be limited if it _literally_ wasn't a question, right?

I'm opening myself to understand things. I don't understand the combativeness.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#367

Post by cosmic_cheese »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #352
kccqzy wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you regarding how Apple can do the bare minimum and barely get called out. But the fact is, I don't know of anything who's using declarativeNetRequest on Safari. The ecosystem of Safari blocking is centered around the legacy technology of content blockers from 2015. And the legacy technology works well enough that there's no pressure for either Apple or adblocker developers to adopt the new thing.

The legacy technology is also privacy-protecting in the sense that normal ad-blocking on iOS doesn’t use any third party JS filtering or reading of data on the page. It breaks down because there are a ton of workarounds sites and ad-networks implement so it’s not super effective compared to MV2 ublock-origin

The privacy aspect is big. Even if content blocker extensions technically aren’t as capable, they were nice because they could be installed with impunity regardless of the party responsible for developing them. It’s a tradeoff.

In practice I’ve found them to be largely effective except for the most awful sites that I should probably be finding alernatives to instead of using (vote with your eyeballs), which is something I do even where “real” uBlock Origin is an option.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#368

Post by wubrr »

concinds wrote: post #348

People should be way more upset at the fact that Safari adblocking today is still inferior to even MV3 Google Chrome. Apple's implementation of declarativeNetRequest was semi-broken until the very latest iOS 18.6. Apple can do the bare minimum, years after everyone else, and barely get called out. The Reality Distortion Field is the enemy. Also funny that other devs had the gall to make people pay (sometimes subscrip…

Apple's software is generally low quality with more bugs and less features than equivalent linux/oss software. There is a long list of 5, 10 - year old, well-known bugs that apple simply ignores. They know their userbase is built off of marketing and 'design', not product quality.

> Also funny that other devs had the gall to make people pay (sometimes subscriptions!) for Safari adblockers inferior to the free adblockers on any other browser.

That's absolutely perfect, and fits into the typical apple fangirl pattern that can be readily seen on hackernews - pseudo-technical people promoting some closed cute-looking macos app that's just objectively worse existing OSS alternatives.

I find it analogous to when financially successful people in their mid-life crisis stage decide to buy a 'nice' car, while not having any interest in cars previously. They invariably seem to end up with the the most flashy/marketed car, even though that car is objectively worse than another car for half the price. They will extol the car's virtue in a way that sounds like they are literally reading off of a marketing brochure, and actual car people just laugh at them.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#369

Post by bigyabai »

TingPing wrote: post #329
bigyabai wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. They are trying to protect you, can you imagine how awful Safari would be if it let you sideload such nasty extensions? It would be just like Chrome, absolutely no market variation to speak of! Despicable. It's really AdGuard's fault for failing to fit their functionality within the arbitrary constraints Apple decided was suitable for a runtime.

It is not an arbitrary decision. For one Safari compiles block lists to perform better, but it can be noticed at startup for big lists. Then there is just resource constraints since the focus is mobile. Chrome on mobile notably supports no extensions. But I do wish desktop Safari was more lenient.

Chrome's decision is also entirely arbitrary, so it's not a great example. Firefox on mobile notable supports Chrome extensions, without any real issues or battery drain whatsoever.

Re: uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari

#370

Post by kccqzy »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #352
kccqzy wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you regarding how Apple can do the bare minimum and barely get called out. But the fact is, I don't know of anything who's using declarativeNetRequest on Safari. The ecosystem of Safari blocking is centered around the legacy technology of content blockers from 2015. And the legacy technology works well enough that there's no pressure for either Apple or adblocker developers to adopt the new thing.

The legacy technology is also privacy-protecting in the sense that normal ad-blocking on iOS doesn’t use any third party JS filtering or reading of data on the page. It breaks down because there are a ton of workarounds sites and ad-networks implement so it’s not super effective compared to MV2 ublock-origin

Yeah but we are comparing that against MV3 uBlock Origin Lite which is the subject of this article. They are the same in terms of privacy protection.
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