If you want to use uBlock Origin on Webkit you can do it with Kagi's Orion browser. https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/ublock-origin...
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/52#issuecom...
They might need some help, not much visible progress since it started.
https://www.ghostery.com/blog/never-consent-by-ghostery#neve...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130619042941/https://www.techn...
I see tracking consent opt-outs as pointless and misleading at best because the adtech industry doesn't operate in good faith. Just block them.
People should have stopped using that extension nearly a decade ago after being sold to an advertising company.
Or after they went closed-source.
Or after they were caught selling user info about blocked ads back to the advertisers so they could figure out how to avoid being blocked.
Or after they started showing their own advertisements to users.
It would be nice to be able to run it on my iPhone which is stuck on 16.2 because of TrollStore and Dopamine
Safari does not support the ruleset format of Chrome/Firefox, so a ruleset has to be maintained for it specifically. In practice this is always the AdGuard ruleset. I doubt a single adblocker doesn't use this as a base.
Beyond that is the custom JS they inject. It's hard to say how good it is but that is the only selling point:
- https://github.com/arjpar/WebShield/tree/cae7629f1c5fb79fe76...
AdGuard has its own too:
- https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari/tree/master/... (JS files)
They look similar in a lot of ways, because well they have to, but I haven't done any deep analysis.
Safari extensions will never match uBlock Origin because it simply does not provide the same APIs (webRequest blocking and DNS) that Firefox does. The ruleset format is also more limited.
I still feel like I need to performance test WebShield more to back my claims, so take it with a grain of salt, but based on what I've seen, it is comparable with or better than uBlock Origin in terms of performance/efficiency, not pure power, but again, please take it with a grain of salt, because I can't believe it.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_finite_automaton [1]: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/tree/04edf7716a74170fb0967f...
It would be great if you did some benchmarking though!
Its also possible to extend WebKits rules, if you can prove minimal performance regression.
With that said, Wipr 2 is great and very reliable. If you enjoy using it and it fits all your needs, you tried WebShield and didn't feel the need to switch, continue using Wipr! I'm not trying to conquer the world.
And disable YouTube shorts?
Thank you for developing open source extension.
I agree about shorts. I’ve repeatedly “removed” them by clicking “less like this” under the ellipsis next to the Shorts heading, but they keep coming back. I’ve also submitted UX feedback about this customer hostile (I pay for YouTube premium) pattern. It’s frustrating when features like this are force fed to you.
Allowing alternative browser engines does not mean Firefox gets a footing. It means Chromium gets a footing even on iOS, and we start seeing Electron apps on iOS, with every app bundling their own Chromium renderer.
If Apple were forced to allow 3rd party engines on iOS, they might as well shut down WebKit. All hail Blink, the universal engine.
If Safari was better then Safari would stay #1 on iOS. They shouldn't be allowed force this any more than Microsoft was allowed to force IE.
If 3rd party browsers were allowed we'd have had WebGL2 on iOS 4 years earlier. WebGPU 2 years earlier. WebXR several years earlier (Apple is only adding it now and only for Vision Pro), and many other features.
I remember reading that Chrome had worked on fixing a lot of that bloat (so did FF). But Safari was a breath of fresh air in how fast it worked and didn't seem to constantly kill my battery.
Yes it has the occasional quirks. But I do like that Apple focuses more on UX than just DevEx by trying to implement everything and the kitchen sink web standards.
As others have said, we definitely need alternative browsers and browser engines.
But at the end of the day, it's just mostly WebKit (and Blink derived from it) and Firefox, so it's not like there's all that much competition.
Blink is a separate engine, as it has significantly diverted from WebKit.
That said, as a frontend dev, I very very rarely run into real world issues between Safari and Chrome. More often it's Firefox/Gecko that lags behind, usually in some sort of graphics optimization (SVG and canvas stuff). Also some differences in WebGL and webgpu support, but those are niche enough that it's not a big deal yet.
Still, while I also experienced the problems you referenced with Firefox on my M1 for months or a year, it has greatly improved and IMO is at this point on par with Safari. With the plus of being open, having a huge community and heavy customization options, and privacy. But with the minus of being ugly in comparison to Safari, I must say.
So yeah I mostly am in line with your opinion, apart from one thing:
> so it's not like there's all that much competition.
This, at least this is my opionion, is no argument. It's playing down the importance of free choice IMO. It should not be more okay to disallow alternative browsers based on the existence of alternatives. I mean, if they never allow it, there will never be any. We can just hope that at some point some competitors will rise again, maybe Firefox will get a bigger foothold, or Ladybird, or Servo, or whatever. I'm just trying to keep my hopes high here, haha.
It works great. Kind of strange it's never mentioned when ad blockers are discussed.
I would be extremely upset if I donated and then you never made it to the store/got removed from the store because you didn't consider or do due diligence on this process.
My point is I don't believe this is a serious project worth giving money to until they can say they have resolved this with Apple.
a) still need to affirm their model was deemed acceptable to Apple,
if they're limiting their market to EU users they should
b) say so up front, and
c) limit access to the app and origin of donations by region
because the problems I describe are material for everyone else.
Mixing money and third party app distribution platforms that want a cut is complicated and if this is a serious project it would have considered this.