WBlock: A New Ad-Blocker for Safari • Hacker News Board

Re: WBlock: A New Ad-Blocker for Safari

#51

Post by nozzlegear » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 12:16 AM UTC

rocketvole wrote: post #16

nozzlegear wrote: post #8

I'm interested in trying this, but not really interested in signing up for the whole Testflight rigamarole. I've had uBlock Origin Lite installed ever since it was released, but I prefer Safari's Content Blocker approach which uBlock doesn't use. (uBlock uses manifest v3, and it sometimes it leaves those small "empty image" boxes where an ad would be; I'm not sure if those two things are related.)

Why would you need testflight? This app is on the app store

Oh, I somehow missed that. On their comparison page it still talks about signing up for TestFlight to install it, which was the case the last time this extension made the rounds on HN.

Re: WBlock: A New Ad-Blocker for Safari

#52

Post by nake89 » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #47

airstrike wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the obvious fact that you can use other browsers. There's no need to use Safari. Also people choose Apple products for a variety of reasons that might trump their browsing preferences. It's still fair for them to want to improve their browsing experience. You're trying to call out "Apple fanboys" but all you're doing is showing the biases of your limiting beliefs.

The 'other browsers' on iOS are just a slightly neutered Safari rendering engine underneath. Firefox on iOS doesn't use the actual Firefox rendering engine, so you can't install extensions on it. On Android, I use actual Firefox and run full-fat uBlock Origin on it to block ads, just like I can on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

While it is true the rendering engine is the same. The functionality is different. I have 5 browsers installed on iOS. They are not the same. - Brave. Has native adblocking - Orion. Supports extensions from firefox and chrome extension store (not perfect compatibility, but still quite amazing). - DuckDuckGo Browser. Offers nice privacy features. - Firefox. Allows to sync tabs with desktop. - Edge. IIRC I installed this when LLMs were early and it had built in bing chat for free llm chatting.

So while the rendering engine is the same, that is one of the least interesting things.

That said, I'm all for removing this requirement.

Re: WBlock: A New Ad-Blocker for Safari

#53

Post by muppetman » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 8:08 PM UTC

temp0826 wrote: post #36

muppetman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home Adguard Home works regardless of if I'm at home or not, without a VPN. I'm on Android though and I just set the Private DNS setting - I have a domain and point it at that. I dunno if you can do Private DNS on iOS though?

NextDNS setup has an iOS(/macOS) configuration profile generator which allows you to "lock down" the dns (and use DoH).

Oh sweet this is good to know, I want to set this on my daughter's iPhone (if/when we get her one)