uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari
334 comments
·August 5, 2025MortyWaves
apozem
> It installs, opening it is a simple message saying I need to enable it in Safari settings. Strange, but ok.
I’ve made several Safari extensions for iOS, and they all have to do this.
Apple provides no API for an app to enable its own Safari extension. It also has no public API on iOS to deeplink to the Settings page for enabling the extension. You just have to tell users where to go and hope they don’t get lost.
(There is an API on macOS to quickly open Safari extension settings. It’s nice! Maybe they’ll add it to iOS someday.)
MortyWaves
Does an app for that even need to exist? Why can’t extensions be a standalone thing in the store?
duskwuff
> Why can’t extensions be a standalone thing in the store?
1) Because then you need a whole parallel set of processes for configuring, updating, and uninstalling those things, distinct from the existing processes for apps. And you need to make that process accessible to users who may be used to everything being an app.
2) A nontrivial number of browser extensions on iOS are part of standalone apps anyway, like password managers or bookmarking tools. It'd be very strange to have both app-with-browser-extensions and browser-only-extensions, or to require some extensions to be installed and updated in tandem with a companion app for expected functionality.
saagarjha
Because Apple's distribution model centers around everything being bundled as an app
bspammer
It seems to require iOS 18.6, it’s working for me after updating.
KineticLensman
Can confirm. Installed uBlock onto an 18.5 device, got the 'not supported' message. Upgraded to 18.6 and now it works.
mirekrusin
Thank you, this should be at the top.
crossroadsguy
I didn’t know there was a 18.6. I usually get notification.
mock-possum
Which apparently my iPhone SE doesn’t qualify for.
Every time this happens, I tell myself, “maybe it’s time to try and android phone”
j1elo
You'been answered already about the support periods in Android, but let me add more for you (and others mentioning support times of the system): in Android this problem doesn't exist to begin with. The fact that getting a new web browser version is anchored to getting a whole new operating system version, is preposterous and absurd, pure planned obsolescence from Apple. You would just upgrade your Chrome, Brave, Firefox, or whatever browser app, and do with them what your were trying to do. (in this case install a browser extension, for which the best one qould be Firefox).
This situation with iOS sounds as ridiculous as if it was mandatory to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 in order to update the Edge browser. (Edited to remove useless rant)
turtlebits
9 year old phone? Don't worry, google won't care about you either.
MarcusE1W
I don't know which version of the iPhone SE you have, there have been several over time. Mine is from 2016 (had to look that up). No update to iOS 18, true.
In your specific case you have to look very carefully in the Android world to avoid an even worse situation. I think there are a few Android models now that promise several years of updates, remains to be seen, though. If this is your beef with Apple, then I doubt you will feel much better with Android.
HWR_14
Apple has way better backwards compatibility than Android. Your 9 year old iPhone SE is still getting security updates.
null
connicpu
I gotta say, using full fat uBlock Origin in Firefox on my android is pretty great.
pdpi
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.
mbirth
Wipr 2. One time payment for macOS and mobile. And it even blocks ads on YouTube (when watched via Safari).
prrar
One time until Wipr 3, coming from a Wipr 1/2 user, just to be clear.
kstrauser
Seconded. It’s so very great! I finally switched off 1Blocker to use it.
instig007
Try Brave browser on iOS, it cuts everything irrelevant without third-party apps, and you also get background media playback on locked screen (settings toggle) on youtube as "one more thing".
Reason077
Firefox Focus has this feature too! (ie: play YouTube videos from lock screen controls, keeps playing with screen off)
eYrKEC2
Brave is awesome. Skip the silly crypto integration and enjoy the amazing integrated ad-blocking.
ErneX
Extensions for Safari on iOS and iPadOS have been available since 2021, I’ve been using ad blockers on those systems, but it’s nice the have uBlock now.
lapcat
This is a bit misleading. Safari content blockers have been available on iOS since 2015. In 2021, JavaScript-based Safari web extensions were added.
karel-3d
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 cocoapods and npm, at which point I gave up
ErneX
Even better, thanks for the correction.
cm2187
Update your iphone and it will work
ryandrake
This doesn't work for phones that are limited to earlier iOS versions. Content blocking was available to developers all the way back to iOS 9. Why would these guys deliberately limit their software to only the latest versions?
bhaney
There was a bug in Safari's registerContentScripts that was only just recently fixed in 18.6. uBOL needs that bugfix.
isodev
The whole point of going iPhone is not to have to deal with these kinds of situations.
xandrius
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.
antihero
The whole point of using an iPhone is that you don't have to update it?
idle_zealot
Bad news: these kinds of situations are inevitable. You've abdicated control of your digital life for a comforting lie
criley2
>The whole point of going iPhone is not to have to deal with these kinds of situations.
This is actually really funny because Android users have had the ability to use any browser they want for like a decade+, including browsers with adblock built in, and browsers with fully featured extension systems supporting all major desktop ad blockers, and it all just works. One click download, no setup, nothing.
This is one of those places where Apple has intentionally made a terrible UX for you to steer you into their walled garden / first party products. You have to use Safari, you have to dig around in settings, you have to make sure your versions all line up, it's pointless rigamarole that will mean the majority of users stick with stock Safari, just as intended.
In many ways, things "just work" on any platform Apple product managers aren't allowed to muck with...
uallo
Non-Chinese version: https://apps.apple.com/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698
Cadwhisker
I got the Australian one by replacing `cn` with `au` in the link.
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
HelloUsername
You can share it simply as https://apps.apple.com/app/id6745342698, no region required
mouselett
Thank you for the link. Can some moderator please update the link? Thanks in advance.
tomhow
Updated, thanks!
tomalpha
I just searched within the (edit: iOS App Store) App Store app for
ublock origin lite
“ublock origin lite”
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 sponsored items at the top is getting even more random.
zelphirkalt
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 start menu. If you just logged in and the system is still loading (whatever it is doing all that long...) and you press the super key and then start typing, it might be too slow to find things _locally on your disk_, and might start searching online. When you have developed an automatism and just continue typing and then hit enter/return key, you will get some online shit result shown in Edge or some Microsoft store shit, instead of simply launching your already installed app. A critical race right there in the start menu. It's baffling.
Recently, there was a reddit post about a KDE menu search thing just as silly. It would not prioritize the title/name of an app, but instead, after typing 3 or more characters, find a word in the description of a launcher/starter of other apps and show those first, even though the 3 chars or more are a perfect substring of the name of an app.
People reinvent simple search and make silly searches over and over again. One of the main criteria is, that a substring match must lead to being high in the results, if not the top result. Shorter wins vs longer, because the match has higher percentage of match with the full title/name. Beginning of the string matched? Higher in results. All very basic things, that shouldn't be difficult to implement.
dylan604
It helps to realize that the search is less of a tool for you to find information and more of a tool to show you an ad targeted on your search query. That's why ads are the top results and the organic data you wanted is after the fold. You're asking an ad company for information, and you don't expect an ad as a result? They are only continuing to show the organic results to tease you into coming back..
zevon
The original comment was about Apple's App Store. I assume there are financial ways to get your App "featured" there or something like that but as far as I know, you can't financially take direct influence on whatever logic Apple uses to sort search results there. Yet, it can still be spectacularly difficult to find an App - even if you type in its exact name, as indicated by OP (can confirm from my experience).
If you have a theory about what Apple's motivation to actively serve such bad results could be, I'd be interested to hear it. I've always sort of assumed that the root cause for this is some combination of neglect on Apple's part and attempts at gaming the system by developers (I don't know much about developing for the App Store, but I presume there are forms of SEO-like activities that can be done in attempts to bump up your app).
deanishe
Is Apple really an ad company?
I think it's reasonable to expect better from them.
lhamil64
The search in Google Messages on Android is completely useless too. It seems like it only searches within the past few days or something, if I try searching for something from a while back it never finds it. And they removed the feature to quickly scroll back to a date in the past, so the only way to dig up old texts is to manually scroll back in a conversation and hope you find it. It's absolutely ridiculous that the search is so bad when it's an app by Google of all companies.
Kaytaro
That's funny because iMessage search works quite well if you can find it buried in the interface. I have a feeling Apple themselves forgot it exists and hasn't gotten around to 'modernizing' it with AI yet.
cptskippy
> The search in Google Messages on Android is completely useless too.
It's literally all Google products. They've just simplified and contextualized and added other things over the years such that if you're not searching for something already above the fold then it won't show up.
When I was using Gmail I had an email with important information that I needed about once a year. I knew the exact subject and who it was from but it would never show up in search. It was my only starred email so I could find it on demand.
jncfhnb
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.
nemomarx
What's the entity in question for KDE search?
accrual
This should disable the start menu web search on Windows 11. It's one of the first .reg tweaks I apply to a new system:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
"DisableSearchBoxSuggestions"=dword:00000001firefax
>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
Not really, if you understand how modern search algorithms work.
Pagerank[1] relies on link analysis -- you see who links to whom, and combine that with information on the traffic each site gets to suss out which sites are more likely to be sought out.
None of that data is available when you're searching through your local hard drive -- you have to use basic search operators like AND, OR, or use negation (Eg: "Star Wars -film" to find information on the space laser thing)
Unfortunately, we don't train folks on how to search anymore, so when "the algorithm" doesn't produce what they are looking for, folks have no ability to conduct their own search.
ambicapter
Ok, this is too good. When I clicked on the App Store link, it opened the App Store and a "What's New" dialog popped up and the only thing highlighted was "Improved Search".
psunavy03
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
It's sad there needs to be a third-party app for local Windows search, but it works . . .
TheJoeMan
I watched an elderly mathematics professor manually type a full URL into the windows search box, complete with "https", and I thought to myself "surely that won't work" and lo and behold...
KPGv2
You mean he searched for a URL and received something that was an exact match as his sole result? Sounds like the search worked perfectly.
What do you think should've happened? The search say "I know what you're searching for, but I refuse to help because your dumb ass should've typed this into a web browser address bar?"
This isn't 1995. Computers have access to the Internet, and there's no reason your computer's search bar should only search local.
Now, if he'd had a file with that as its name, and a text document with that URL, I would've expected those first. Maybe not at first. Depends on disk space allocated to indexing.
mort96
I just searched for uBlock. Top result is an ad for another ad blocker. Second result is an ad blocker called "Ublock", with "Origin" in its tags; a clear scam whose purpose is to leech off the reputation of uBlock Origin and trick people.
Apple's App Store is chock full of scams like this. It's not just bad search, it's a failure to enforce any kind of anti scam policy (combined with seemingly intentionally terrible search).
radicaldreamer
Apple’s App Store makes so much revenue (mainly through the slightly more legit scams like gacha games, but plenty through weekly subscriptions for outright scam apps too) that there are many incentives for that team to never clean this up.
It’s a huge driver of what Apple pushes as the future of the company: services. It has been this way for more than a decade now: "What the hell is this????Remember our talking about finding bad apps with low ratings? Remember our talk bout becoming the 'Nordstroms' of stores in quality of service?“ - Phil Schiller in 2012 (https://www.imore.com/hilarious-phil-schiller-email-reveals-...)
mns
But god forbid you have the word Android somewhere in your app, because they will then reject your update.
filoleg
> god forbid you have the word Android somewhere in your app
I literally have an app installed on my iPhone called “Android TV” (a remote to control android smart TVs, which I used to have years ago), and it says “Connect to Android TV” in giant header typeface on the app homescreen.
Searching for “Android” on app store brings up even more apps containing that word in the name and in the app, including third-party non-Google apps.
vehemenz
The problem is that people like us use Homebrew (and tell our families to), so there’s little incentive to complain loudly about this issue. Browser extensions and the occasional one-off app are the only reasons to go there.
bsenftner
Why do people think a browser extension is safe to use?
bsenftner
I've always wondered why attorneys do not see these situations as easy money. Corporations really do control the courts...
sneak
Apple’s contempt for its customers is palpable these days.
It breaks my heart to see how far they’ve fallen.
cwmoore
I have not raised expectations since they deleted half of my music collection years ago. To this day they provide no way to export iMessage threads.
recursive
Some of us have been palpating it for decades.
whstl
Apple is really bad at search, and on purpose. Welp, money before quality!
cedws
Nah I think they’re just bad at search, macOS Spotlight search has to be the most slow janky search I have ever used.
mathgeek
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.
DrewADesign
You haven’t used windows search recently I take it.
artursapek
They definitely are bad at search. When I type “safar” into iOS settings, it says “no results for “safar”” while it looks for the fucking built-in browser’s search page.
pcdoodle
I can never find my emails on Mac. Even worse if they're organized in folders. I just want a universal search: contains text, sort by age, I don't care about other filters....
ymolodtsov
This doesn't really make Apple look better, but a huge part of it is surely how recent the Ublock Origin app for iOS is. New apps take time to propagate and become good responses. Which makes sense, you wouldn't want someone else to be able to instantly cover Ublock Origin itself with a copycat app (not that it doesn't happen anyway).
bigyabai
Seems like the copycat issue happens regardless: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
coffeecoders
Search is bad everywhere these days.
Honestly, even Google search with "terms reddit" is better than Reddit's own built-in search. That says a lot.
Same deal on may mac. Unless I know the exact file name, Finder search is useless. Spotlight will happily surface a PDF from 2017 before showing the text file you saved yesterday.
Which brings me to the question: why is search so hard?
1vuio0pswjnm7
Why use an app store. Is Apple more trustworthy than the author of this app. Think about it
The company continues to increase its advertising services revenue. In terms of protecting computer buyers from advertising and associated surveillance, one could reason that its interests are conflicted
App store "search" has always been a joke. It has never been suitable for app "discovery". The company would rather computer owners select from lists of recommended apps
hoistbypetard
I tried on the mac store.
For the unquoted search, it now comes in 7th for me.
If I just search for ublock, I don't see it at all.
The mac store has long been bad, but this seems worse.
socalgal2
I needed to add search to my own website. I wanted it to be local search (the titles for the documents are all available locally). I tried several different popular 1000s of stars JavaScript search libraries. All but one failed on simple searches. Like if the title was "See Spot Run to the Park" and my search was "Park" or "Run" this title would not be listed as a result and titles with neither word would appear. I reported the issues, they were ignored as "working as intended". Not sure why anyone uses these libraries. I suspect they don't actually test. The plug them in, it appears to work at a glance, and they ship it.
I'm talking about Fuse.js, FlexSearch.js, etc.... I don't remember which other ones I tried but was shocked out bad the results were
freehorse
If anybody is interested, the original (not lite) firefox-version of uBlock Origin works just well in Orion (webkit based browser by kagi) in both iPhone and Mac. It is great to have it for safari though anyway as safari is the default browser in these platforms.
jeffhuys
I love, LOVE Orion. Use it both on iPhone and Mac. However, lately, it's becoming more and more buggy and sluggish. Writing this in Orion though - just have to quit it a few times a day to battle the RAM consumption and sluggishness. So yeah, like the other person says: DEFINETELY still beta. And yes, I report the issues.
alephnerd
Do you have a significant number of tabs opened? I've noticed a similar issue and my hunch is it was due to "tab rot".
Shank
I’ve found this to be the case, but I absolutely do not consider this acceptable. It’s just uncontrolled memory use. I also experience this on Safari though, so I suspect it’s a WebKit issue.
bkienzle3
I've been using this browser for several months now. I think it's the best option if you want access the addons that are available in Firefox for Android. However, the browser is definitely still beta. I often encounter bugs, mostly with tab behavior. These are still pretty manageable though, and worth the tradeoff to me.
DavideNL
Orion does NOT support all Firefox/Chromium extensions. Many extensions only work partly;
The fact that it does not produce errors, does not mean it works.
I hate that they (Kagi) make it *look like* extensions work…
For reference, a cheat sheet: https://orionfeedback.org/d/2174-crowdsourced-list-of-extens...
forgotoldacc
I've been using Adguard for a couple years and have had no problems. I think I've only seen ads slip through a couple times. If there's anyone who's able to compare, is there any real difference between these ad blockers?
microflash
Adguard is still better because it ships multiple extensions that you can enable to bypass filter limit on iOS. uBlock Origin Lite is not able to block annoying Google sign in pop ups, yet.
al_borland
AdGuard always bothered me. On macOS it sits in the menubar and has about a half dozen extensions that load into Safari. It felt like a bloated sprawling mess. I just installed uBOL and it's a single extension that sits in Safari. It feel much more clean and unobtrusive.
rafram
> has about a half dozen extensions that load into Safari
That’s because there’s a limit on the number of filters per extension. uBO may eventually need to do the same.
al_borland
Interesting...
https://adguard.com/kb/adguard-for-safari/solving-problems/r...
Sounds like I should direct a portion of my ire toward Apple on this.
Citizen8396
You can disable the menu bar icon in settings...
thimabi
That’s in fact one of the gripes I have with certain MacOS software. It would be far better if menu bar icons were opt-in rather than opt-out. The average non-technical user eventually ends up having tons of these icons in the menu bar.
al_borland
The existence of a menubar icon as an option implies it’s a service that needs to run all the time. I compare that perception to what uBOL mentions in the App Store description.
> uBOL is entirely declarative, meaning there is no need for a permanent uBOL process for the filtering to occur, and CSS/JS injection-based content filtering is performed reliably by the browser itself rather than by the extension. This means that uBOL itself does not consume CPU memory resources while content blocking is ongoing -- uBOL's service worker process is required _only_ when you interact with the popup panel or the option pages.
LeoPanthera
I believe if you do that, the filter lists don't auto-update. That's the reason for the menu bar app.
null
saw-lau
Just adding another alternative that I've been using for years for people to consider - 1Blocker.
SanjayMehta
1Blocker is worth the one time lifetime purchase, works with your family iCloud+ account.
DASD
This and Little Snitch Mini.
slowmotiony
I cancelled my Adguard subscription when I found out the founder and team are russian. That's big enough of a difference for me.
LeoPanthera
Used to be Russian. The company moved to Cyprus.
Most of their software (including AdGuard for Safari and AdGuard Home) is open source, so there's little chance of anything nefarious happening.
hundchenkatze
Except there's no easy way to verify that what you get from the store has been built, unmodified, from the public source - afaik.
(I still use AdGuard fwiw)
saagarjha
Adguard on macOS constantly runs an Electron app in the background :(
kaladin_1
Thanks for asking this. I have always had Adguard on iOS with no issues wondering if there is any extra benefit to switching to uBlock Origin Lite on Safari.
drukenemo
I’ve been testing it in beta for a month or so and I can report that at least to me websites load much faster than with Adguard or Wipr.
jaffa2
i've also been using adguard for years. Yes it's paid, but it actually works. I use it on mac and ios. none of the free( at the time) ad blockers worked as well. or they constantly needed updates, or certain things broke etc. adguard is a great product. not affiliated, not sponsored, just a user.
vehemenz
It's even better than you say because the free version—for Safari only—works very well.
hakunin
Weird, it's installed but it won't let me enable it in Safari. The "enable" checkbox is inactive. Safari 18.5 on MacOS Sequoia 15.5. Restarting the browser, and reinstalling the extension has no effect.
hakunin
Solution: update to Sequoia 15.6 (which comes with Safari 18.6) and it works.
hknws2023saio
this worked, thank you
hknws2023saio
same here, on Sequoia 15.5 (24F74)
JoeriBe
This app is currently not available in your country or region.
smarx007
From @gorhill himself: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/358#issueco...
Let's wait a bit
morphle
Not available in the Netherlands/Europe.
chronogamous
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.
kumekay
Not available in Czechia/EU
comrade1234
I'm in CH and it's available to me but I can never remember if I'm set to the Swiss store or the USA store...
Ok, just looked and I think I'm on the Swiss store. Well, at least you guys get the option of adding non-apple app stores while we do not.
Squarex
Can confirm. I hope that they enable it before the Testflight build expires.
arational
You can use the Testflight version.
Philpax
Sweden/Europe, same
messe
Unavailable here in Denmark too.
messe
Too late to edit the above, but it seems to be available now.
eliseumds
Same, not available in Spain.
tekawade
I moved from Chrome to Firefox for this.
And found out Firefox is much better browser than Chrome anyway. Moved due to post here as well. Can’t find the post easily to link here for credit.
alliao
i've resisted iOS 18 for so long.. Project Indigo was really tempting...but this might just be the thing pushed me to update to iOS 18....
frou_dh
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.
shawnz
Ad blockers on Safari effectively have the same weaknesses as ad blockers on Chrome now have since the deprecation of the blocking webRequest API (which Safari never supported).
See https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b... for some examples of things you can't do without those APIs.
lapcat
> the blocking webRequest API (which Safari never supported)
This is inaccurate. Safari (Mac) supported it until 2019, and indeed there was a version of uBlock Origin for Safari back then.
saagarjha
I don't think uBlock Origin ever supported Safari?
shawnz
Interesting, thanks for the correction.
frou_dh
As I understand it, AdGuard uses (in addition to a browser extension) a system-level local network proxy so can do anything to requests and responses?
Confusingly, there are 3 offerings: "AdGuard for Mac", "AdGuard for iOS" and "AdGuard for Safari" and I think it's the first 2 that are the good stuff, even for Safari.
mary-ext
that said, gorhill has made a decent effort on making most uBlock/Adguard filter rules work within dNR.
the only problem is that you just don't have any choice for custom filters, it relies on prebaked resources.
Squarex
For privacy aware people it can be important that an open source and well trusted extension is available.
broeng
It's been possible for about a decade to use Firefox Focus as a Content Blocker for Safari. I assume it's open source, "well trusted" is of course subjective.
nozzlegear
Firefox Focus doesn't exist on Mac, though.
lotsofpulp
I thought the whole point of iOS and macOS content blockers is that it does not have to be trusted, since there is never any data flowing out, only a list of blocked IP addresses that the operating system refers to (like a windows hosts (file).
Bewelge
My experience has been that installing AdGuard on my iPhone made no noticeable difference. To be fair, I barely browse on my phone. Basically only news sites and Reddit/HN. But apart from HN I see ads on all of those pages.
So I am just a puzzled by your point of view :) May I ask which App you are using? I would love to be proven wrong and have an ad-free browsing experience in the future.
frou_dh
Not sure what to troubleshoot with AdGuard, but from consulting mine that's working well, I'd ensure that both "Safari protection" and "Advanced protection" are enabled in its app, and that all of its Safari extensions in the system Settings app are enabled (and the main one is set to "All Websites: Allow").
Bewelge
Ah thanks! I only have Safari protection enabled, the advanced one requires me to pay (though I don't remember that from when I installed it a couple of months ago).
Saw someone else in this thread mention the Orion browser - I will give that a try for now. If I'm not satisfied I'll try paying for AdGuard. Thanks for the reply though!
null
celsoazevedo
There's a reason why this is uBlock Origin Lite and not uBlock Origin. Still works, but can't do the same thing as the extension for Firefox (desktop), for example.
skydhash
Adblocking as links bloking can be sufficient, but sometimes you need to bring the big guns and alter the page content itself. Safari has even "Hide distracting elements" now, which can not be an extension. That cements the idea that most uBlock Origin features should be part of the browser to make it a wonderful user agent.
broeng
It's been possible to use Content Blockers for Safari for a long time, which alters the page content. Firefox Focus came out about a decade ago, and can be used as one.
null
charcircuit
The same thing happened when Chrome dropped mv2 support and a brand name ad blocking extention never upgraded beyond mv2.
operator-name
Just tested it out on iOS. It’s scored 94% against Adguard’s 79% on this test page: https://adblock.turtlecute.org/
gorhill
Those webpages used to "test" blockers are frowned upon, see: https://x.com/gorhill/status/1583581072197312512
There are many reasons that sort of online tools are not able to reliably test a content blocker:
- Many content blockers are designed to fool pages to think no content blocker is installed
- Content blockers filter according to real, actual cases, not synthetic cases used in their tests
saagarjha
Would you be supportive of an "adblock test page" that literally just reports if the adblocker is working correctly, rather than how good it is? Like maybe an EICAR-like rule that is added to EasyList that matches an element on that page?
eikenberry
I just tested with Firefox and uBlock Origin in the stricter "medium mode" and got a score of 1%. So yeah, I don't think these test pages are that great.
LeoPanthera
I'm using AdGuard with Mac Safari and I get 96%. Perhaps this is a configuration issue. But if that site doesn't test for false positives, which it doesn't seem to, I'd say the result is pretty meaningless.
dizhn
It says on the page that ublock origin breaks the results. Now that might be the full firefox version but in my test with Firefox the result was 1 blocked on the page but 125 on the extensions own notification.
humptybumpty
Wipr 2 full 100%
vehemenz
I got 7% with uBO Lite on iOS. The test doesn't seem that reliable.
Asmod4n
I’m getting different results for it with every reload, is that normal? Ranges form 56-96%
patentatt
Must depend on your block lists, I get a 98% using AdGuard on iOS. I'm using easy list, easy privacy, fanboy annoyances and social filters, and hagezi's light dns filter. I'm a big fan of ublock but I don't see much issue with AdGuard for now.
danieldk
Wipr 2 scores 100%
mproud
I’ve been using Ka-Block!
(Bonus points for being inspired by Star Trek Klingon?)
So I tapped the link on my iPhone and was taken to the App Store.
The download button is available. Great! Finally I can block ads in mobile too.
It installs, opening it is a simple message saying I need to enable it in Safari settings. Strange, but ok.
I go to Settings -> Safari -> Extensions -> uBlock Origin Lite.
> “uBO Lite” is not available for this version of Safari.
This feels like a series of failures, why is it available for download on iPhone if it doesn’t work at all? Is iOS Safari really that different to Mac Safari?