There is a lot of confusion around this issue. Some people are taking this to mean that Safari has completely banned ad blockers, which isn't the case. Instead they've switched to a model that matches what they've been doing on iOS which is content blocking[1]. Content blockers give Safari a list of triggers and actions to take when something matches a trigger.<p>For example; you can have a trigger which contains a regex that matches all images and stylesheets for a given domain. The action can be one of several options, one of which is to block that item.<p>One advantage this technique provides over ad blocking is that there's no data to be phoned back home. It is, in essence, a mask that is applied to a web page before rendering. Also, it's very lightweight. It's literally just a JSON document which means Safari can perform better.<p>Now, I'll admit it's not foolproof. Apple and the content blockers have some work to do on it. I'm noticing some issues with it myself after having upgraded to Safari 13. But from a privacy perspective, I personally much prefer this technique.<p>1: <a href="https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/creating_a_content_blocker" rel="nofollow">https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...</a>
Well i have no complains about Safari but their Extension system is really costing them users. At this point I uBlock Origin is by far the most reliable AdBlocker you can find and my having the developers explaining that in the future maybe only Firefox will support it it's kinda of sad.<p>Of course we know that Google has to make money from Ads so its understandable but what about Apple ? They are putting heavy focus in privacy, would it be good if they open their browser to make sure their users will not move to Chrome/Firefox or other browser ?
This is not good!<p>I thought Apple were way out in front when it came to tracking and whatnot...<p>My wife uses a MAC at home and was complaining about how slow our internet was (70Mb down... not slow) a while back.<p>She mainly looks at news sites and when I saw what she was looking at I knew the problem wasn't the internet connection.<p>The entire page, apart from a tiny bit in the middle, was cluttered with moving shit!<p>I installed uBlock Origin and... the result was fantastic: pages loaded in a fraction of the time.<p>When she realised that the articles were a tiny proportion of the downloaded crap she realised she'd been missing out for so long.<p>Once, when the MAC went back for repair, it was replaced with a new one and OMG the horror when she fired up Safari and it had no blocker... UBlock Origin to the rescue.<p>I agree with one of the other comments on here: The web is utterly unusable without it.
It's interesting that Google and Apple seem to be converging on this issue (ad-blocking extensions) even though they're probably coming from two different directions.<p>Google probably wants to discourage ad-blocking because it's a threat to their business model. Apple just dislikes not having full control on what the users run (and sometimes for good reasons, they probably want to avoid malware extensions). Still, in the end they both end up with subpar ad blocking facilities as a result.<p>Firefox really needs to become a worthy competitor once again. And no I don't consider forks of Chromium to be reasonable alternatives in the long term, at least until those teams prove that they can maintain a deep fork of the browser on their own which will be necessary if they need to maintain functionality that Google removes from upstream.
I like using Safari and uBlock Origin. I notice that I am not a power user of browsers - give tabs, a forward and backward button and any adblocker and I used to be happy. This mean that I could easily use Safari and Firefox - I prefer not to use Chrome derivatives to do my part in preventing developers from forgetting about other browsers.<p>However, I have recently become a power user of uBlock Origin specifically to curtail the general attention hacking on the web. uBlock Origin is already a very great ad blocker in its default installation, but I've recently got into using its powerful cosmetic filters to block out "attention hacking features", such as (all of) YouTube's recommendations, comments on various sites, and stuff like the "Hot Network Questions" on StackOverflow. Things I've discovered that are too good at distracting my mind. With a few uBlock Origin cosmetic filter rules, those website elements remain hidden when I visit them.<p>I wonder if it's possible to continue using Safari with my own distraction filters. It's a shame if I have to stop using it.
A while ago I uninstalled uBO/PrivacyBadger and switched to using a combination of NextDNS [0] and Brave for daily driving (Firefox for work because FF containers) and the adblocking + browsing experience has been nothing short of stellar.<p>NextDNS takes the load off outside the network perimeter and concatenates all the many lists and trackers in one dashboard. I'm free to use other gentler add-ons in the browser if I so desire, rather than have the DOM split apart and my local machine do all the heavy lifting.<p>The best thing about using DNS-level blocking is that it's an elegant solution across all my devices, especially when paired with a VPN that enforces those resolvers.<p>[0] <a href="https://nextdns.io" rel="nofollow">https://nextdns.io</a>
This isn’t just about applying some regexes, it’s about disabling utterly obnoxious “features” of web sites.<p>Until a content blocker can offer a right-click “block THIS element” feature, they won’t come close to the power of uBO. The UI alone for highlighting the exact offender in the document tree is brilliant. Every time a “newsletter” pops in my face, I can banish it forever. Every unnecessary floating space-stealing navigation bar, I can banish, returning the screen space that was stolen from me. Every scroll-with-the-article Facebook/Twitter gadget can be similarly removed.
Interesting to see the difference in how HN reacts to changes like this in Safari vs Chrome.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477</a>
I’ve been using the MacOS Beta for a while and lack of uBlock Origin has made browsing terrible again. Ads everywhere now and I had forgotten how bad it was.<p>Firefox has gotten pretty good now, the only problem is no integration with Keychain which is a serious downside. On iOS I use Safari but with BlockBear and Firefox Focus as content blockers. So my experience there is pretty good. iCloud Keychain makes my password situation a lot better going between iOS and MacOS... I’m not sure I can achieve the same using Firefox right now.
Apple's goal is not hackability, it's to provide a safe environment for users to generate revenue. It's Dave & Buster's. That was the idea for mobile from day one. They did a great job out of the gate and they're getting better at it every year. They've had to work backwards in desktop because people used to expect full-control of those machines, but they're slowly bringing users around.<p>If you want to practice self-defense and weaponry, don't do it at Dave & Buster's.
I went through the process of tearing away from Chrome. I only aspect that was holding me back was my stored passwords in Chrome and shared seamlessly with Android password manager.<p>Exported the passwords and imported it into Enpass. That was the first step in liberation.<p>I then decided to keep my personal and work related browsing separate especially since both require a google account (Gsuite at work). I wanted an ability to open the browser of my choice based on the URL I click and work anywhere on MacOS.<p>I implemented a simple URL handler that I register as default browser and that opens the clicked URL in appropriate browser:<p><a href="https://github.com/hackworks/chromer" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/hackworks/chromer</a><p>It is not a very polished implementation but has been working reliably so far.<p>With that, I am now able to switch between any browser without any lock in.
One alternative I haven't seen mentioned is Glimmerblocker[1]. There may be good reason for this—it looks like the last commit was a few years ago—but I know it still works in High Sierra at least. However, it's been a long time since I used the program regularly.<p>Glimmerblocker is unique in that it doesn't use Safari APIs—it creates a proxy to filter traffic before it gets to the browser. Despite that, it's quite powerful; I remember using it to make an extensive Javascript patch for one site.<p>(I vaguely remember something about Glimmberblocker needing SIP to be disabled, but there's nothing about that on their website now, so I'm not sure. I keep SIP off anyway, so I wouldn't know.)<p>---<p>1: <a href="https://glimmerblocker.org" rel="nofollow">https://glimmerblocker.org</a>
So, if I understand things correctly, the change is from “browser passes URL to blocker, blocker runs arbitrary code to decide whether to block it” to “blocker passes description of URLs to block to browser, browser runs code”?<p>In the (somewhat) analogous case of antivirus tools, that change is from using heuristics to detect viruses to using fingerprints. I’m not sure that makes much of a difference there (but possibly I’m wrong)<p>Also, the risk here is lower, so not taking the risk to run arbitrary code in exchange for somewhat better ad blocking may be the better choice.<p>So, what are real-life examples that the uBlock Origin currently blocks that new blockers won’t be able to block?
I don't understand why this is a good thing. As a user, I can make my own choices on what type of as blocking technology I want to use.<p>I'm sure most people on HN would support legalization of marijuana even though it is arguable that smoking marijuana is bad for you. Same thing applies here, I should be able to choose what ad blocking technology I want to use.
It was asked in the Github comments on this issue, but I want to clarify for myself: is the main difference between "content blockers" and "ad blocker" that works like uBlock Origin the way that they handle blocking content? What are the downsides to the content blocking plugin model?
Heaven forbid users choose to trade performance for a more usable browsing experience. Ads/tracking vs blocking is a war, and preventing blockers from running arbitrary code will cripple blockers, allowing technology to be developed by hugely funded ad companies that effectively bypass blockers due to these limitations. Providing a blocklist is completely insufficient for totally blocking ads and tracking, as anyone that has used the content blockers on iOS has observed.
Everybody misses the point.<p>The declarative API takes control away from the user. Currently you can block everything except the useful content. With the declarative API you can block only trackers A, B and C, but not C and D, because C and D weren't added to the global list of trackers. Moreover, you won't even know that C and D exist. With the declarative api, trackers get a trivial way to bypass adblocking: they can just change the domain name. This is the true goal of declarative API, not performance or security.<p>Why does the declarative API still allow to monitor your traffic? This sort of contradicts the security selling point, right? Because corporate users need to monitor activity of their employees: they install a corp extension that monitors traffic. They don't need to block anything, but they need the monitoring ability.<p>The argument that adblockers can route all your traffic thru their servers simply doesn't stand. If this was a concern, the browser could refine the permissions model: an extension can monitor and block any traffic, but it doesn't have access to the internet. Just like in Android you can uncheck the camera and mic permissions for any app. Problem solved.
I have used Better (<a href="https://better.fyi" rel="nofollow">https://better.fyi</a>) on the Mac since the content blocker system was introduced and have never had a problem.
I use AdGuard on iOS and you can use very similar block lists as uBlock Origin for macOS does. Besides ads, I block social media on third party sites. This kind of tracking is just outright evil.<p>I'll give it on macOS a try, because the other day, I noticed that uBlock Origin didn't detect one specific tracking URL, but Firefox did (and it clearly was in the network tab of the Safari developer tools). Now it's clear why: uBO is outdated for Safari.<p>Anyways, thanks for the port and maintenance all those years when I could use uBO!
There are plenty of good ad blocker alternatives available for Safari on macOS and iOS.<p>I’ve created one that is updated regularly, has a free option, respects your privacy and doesn’t take any $ from advertisers to let ads through the ad block rules [1].<p>Simply search on the App Store for a variety of alternatives.<p>uBlock Origin is good but it’s not the be all and end all of ad blocking especially on Apple platforms.<p>[1] More details at <a href="https://www.magiclasso.co/" rel="nofollow">https://www.magiclasso.co/</a>
I find a bit strange that he didn't think of Pihole as one of the alternative.<p><a href="https://pi-hole.net/" rel="nofollow">https://pi-hole.net/</a>
This is a mind-boggling level of FUD. Content blockers have been noticeably superior on both macOS and iOS for years. They’re not “limited”, they’re rational. It’s abjectly absurd that traditional ad blockers can consume as much CPU as they do on every single page load. I hope everyone in this thread jumping ship to Firefox in a panic enjoys their shorter battery life.
Time to start avoiding any browser that limits the power of extensions.<p>Browsing the web today has become a dirty business, it's easy to be tracked, and users have the freaking right to defend their privacy when browsing, and to do it in whichever way they like.<p>I'm tired of these paternalistic and uningenuous claims from Google and Apple that sound like "but we do it for you, you know, adblockers really hurt the performance of your browser". Something hurts my browsing experience? Well, it should be my call whether the pros outsize the cons or not, it should my call whether to use it or not, not the browser's developer call. After all, the web browsing experience today is way more compromised because of the huge amount of third-party scripts that run on most of the pages, surely not by extensions, but browser producers don't seem to put the same emphasis on the need of reducing the use of third-party scripts and trackers.<p>To me decisions like blocking external web API calls in extensions just because "they may slow down your browser or put your security at risk" sound like if the Linux kernel suddenly decided to disable the support for network sockets because "you know, hackers might use them for backdoors, or you might end up connecting to an extremely slow server and hurt your experience": a complete nonsense bullshit.<p>Plus, browsers like Brave have recently proved, with its native content blocker developed in Rust, that it's still possible to use a traditional adblocker without compromising the browsing experience.<p>Time to uninstall Chrome. Time to uninstall Safari. Time to ditch away all the browsers that do their best to limit your freedom on how you surf the web. Extensions are among the foundations of a modern browser, and limiting their power to static lists of rules is an immoral decision that deserves a serious boycot act from users.
Let me get this straight, because Apple is worried I might leak private information to the Extension Developer, they came up with a new "content blocking" scheme that is not as capable so now my risk has increased for every website I visit? I think I would like to take my chances with the Extension Developer.
I didn't know this first but spent awhile after installed Safari 13 and noticed uBO wasn't there anymore and spent time searching for alternative options and valuating those mentioned in the post but decided I'll go with FF and only use Safari with some websites those I'm working with them.
FWIW, I've been on Catalina for a couple of months now, which means no uBlock, and the web has been pretty usable. Safari alone seems to be doing a pretty good job with isolating the worst ads.<p>That being said, this post reminded me to install a replacement, so I just installed Adguard. We'll see how it goes.
For those looking for a related alternative/supplement.. consider a privacy DNS solution. I've really been liking NextDNS lately. Lets you customize a ton of stuff:<p>It launched on HN a while back: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012687</a><p><a href="https://nextdns.io" rel="nofollow">https://nextdns.io</a>
There's the option for hosts-based blocking, too; unified hosts[1] for example<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts</a>
There are ways to make AdBlockers work with Safari 13. It is a question of someone taking the effort to adhere to the new design enforced by Apple for Safari extensions.<p>I switched to AdGuard from uBlock Origin.
I've found Ka-block! to work well enough that I'm happy waiting until a clear winner between 1Blocker and AdGuard emerges. OTOH, the bigger annoyance has been the fact that none of the vi key extensions for Safari seem to work anymore.