Comment by cookiengineer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cookiengineer | Hacker News Reader

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Every time someone mentions this I have to think about the messed up ecosystem of Safari Webextensions.

Safari only allows extensions installed via the apple store, but every single adblocker there is a scam.

I'm not kidding you, I audited most of them. Chances are it's either a three years outdated list of adblock plus that doesn't catch anything or it's an extension that replaces all google analytics identifiers with their own to make money (even when it's a paid extension).

The only thing worse than Chrome is Safari at the moment. And Apple doesn't give a shit about anything there, I reported the malicious extensions to no effect at all.

So when thinking of the other side and "removal of choice" I don't have a healthier, audited ecosystem in mind...I have Safari in mind, which right now is a worse attack surface than IE6 back in the days when it comes to Privacy or Security.

Malicious extensions (as answer to comments). DONT install any of them, as I think they're scamware.

[1] AdBlock for Safari and Adblock for Mobile, which is an outdated AdBlock Plus fork: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/adblock-for-safari/id140204259...

[2] AdBlock Plus (which is the same scam model as other eyeo GmbH products): https://apps.apple.com/de/app/adblock-plus-f%C3%BCr-safari/i...

[3] Stop Ads https://apps.apple.com/lu/app/stop-ads-der-ultimative-ad-blo...

[4] 1Blocker https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1107421413

[5] Wipr doesn't do anything, literally https://appsto.re/us/thAB9.i

[6] Ad blocker https://apps.apple.com/de/app/ad-blocker-remove-ads/id153692...

You can't list these apps, say they're scam or they don't work with no proof whatsoever except your word, especially when there's counter arguments they actually work.

Explain yourself, or are we supposed to take your word for gospel?

> Explain yourself, or are we supposed to take your word for gospel?

Not gonna waste more time on this tbh, as I'm building a competition to those products. If you don't believe me, stay in your walled garden. I've given you hints, start checking them for yourself or don't.

If I would post screenshots of MITMProxy, Little Snitch or something else, people would try to discredit them as fake anyways.

> If you don't believe me, stay in your walled garden. I've given you hints, start checking them for yourself or don't.

There's no need to be so confrontational. You made the claim, you'll probably be asked to show the technical reasoning behind your statements on a forum called Hacker News. But since you're working on competition, it's in your best interest to discredit similar products.

> If I would post screenshots of MITMProxy, Little Snitch or something else, people would try to discredit them as fake anyways

Sounds to me you're not prepared for people to show you might be incorrect. Honestly, I never doubted your position, I just wanted clarification for my own intellectual gratification. But you sound really defensive for some reason.

(By the way, I do not work in ad-tech nor in ad-blocking tech and I have no stake in anything slightly related to the matter at hand.)

> Not gonna waste more time on this tbh […]

Much better to waste everyone else’s time, right?

> Wipr doesn't do anything, literally

As somebody currently using Wipr and not seeing any ads, would you mind bridging the gap between your assertions and my reality? Genuinely curious how we could be truthfully so out of step on this.

Wipr works for me as well. Not as good as uBlock Origin, but blocks most ads on my iPhone.

So "Adguard for Safari" is a scam, for example ?

You picked literally the only choice left that's not a scam.

I updated my previous comment with more details, hence the comment was written on mobile initially.

Do you want to call out any particularly malicious ad blockers here? Just in case I happen to have installed one of them.

Since parent tested all of them and they’re not kidding, it follows that yours must be a scam.

Unless they didn’t test everything or were exaggerating that is.

Since you made up your mind, you must be one of those scamware devs.

Unless you were exaggerating and actually don't use MacOS or Safari anyways.

Not that hard to make ones mind when I personally use two perfectly fine blockers, you posted no proof of your hyperbolic claims that all Safari ad blockers are scams and at the time I replied you hadn’t even posted any names of problematic blockers.

And now you’re calling me a scammer for criticizing your statements…

Yeah. Also I know that mine blocks ads, but parent alluded to a spectrum of malice and scamminess. If it cost $2 but it's a mediocre fork of ABP and that's all, then I'm already out the $2 and I might as well keep it installed. If parent claims it's outright malware that steals passwords, mines crypto and holds your cat pictures for ransom then I'm at least going to investigate.

I’ve used Better for a long time and it’s not a scam. It also doesn’t have access to web content.

I use Wipr and it is great. I don't see ads, which is the reason I use it. So I don't see your point. Other than the fact that you are making a competitor, so you are incentivized to post something like this.

Time to share the testing protocol details, I think. Unless you want people to just believe that [4,5], two of 3 most recommended ad blockers for Apple devices, don’t work or don’t remain up to date.

could you expand on 3,4, and 5? you have listed them with no context as to why and the links are not helpful.

AdBlock Pro — Happy with it

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