uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS | Hacker News Reader

uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS

testflight.apple.com

411 pointsSquarex134 comments

It's a shame Firefox on iOS has failed/refused to support third-party content filters [1] since 2019. Just because they can't bring Gecko doesn't mean they shouldn't try to gain mindshare for the Mozilla Firefox brand on one of the biggest platforms, yet they refuse to put in the resources.

1: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/5198

Somewhat ironically, you can install and use the Firefox uBO extension on Orion for iOS. Orion/Kagi figured out how to do it before Firefox/Mozilla.

Last I tried Orion was a couple of months ago. I wouldn't really say "figured out" per se. Like I see the vision, I like the vision, but I'm waiting.

I mean that they figured out how to support (most) browser extensions on iOS in their browser, unlike Firefox. They haven’t figured everything out, but I do daily drive Orion on iOS. I still prefer Firefox on desktop due to stability (and Orion’s extension advantage in mobile doesn’t extend to desktop).

Not most, they have figured out a few and they don't work very well.

Really all I wanted was uBlock and that works.

That being said, after being my daily driver for almost a year, I went back to safari about a month ago with Wipr. 3x speedup and battery efficiency. Unfortunately, it became buggier instead of less buggy :(

Still use it on mac tho - vertical tabs are a game-changer.

What do you need that doesn’t work?

uBlock does not work. I don't know how people check that it works for them, but for me it definitely does not. Neither does e.g. https://getindie.wiki/ - redirects don't work and I can't even get to the settings page from the menu (it does open once after install, but afterwards the button that's supposed to open it does nothing)

UPD: Somehow installing indie wiki extension second time (without deleting it, just pressing "add to orion" a second time) partially fixed it. Redirects now works, banners are broken, showing "visit $destination$ instead"

from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs.

even without the bugs, after everything we’ve been through with crazy shit from closed sourced browser companies, the last thing i’d install would be orion/kagi. lol nuh uh.

not a chance i’d trust an ai company with almost the entirety of my online existence—especially when they close off and hide what they’re doing.

> from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs

I use it as a daily driver on macOS. Not noticing the bugs anymore.

I just started giving it a try again about a week ago, and I second this. A year ago it was nearly unusable for any extension outside their preferred list, now it’s largely a pleasant experience.

I use it on iPhone, it has lots of bugs. But it's worth it for the ad blocking

Why not just use AdGuard or PiHole?

Those are DNS blockers. You're not going to block YouTube ads with those.

Plus, I want blocking when I'm outside of my house. I don't always want to run everything through Tailscale and Apple doesn't always make that easy. It'll turn off your VPN quite frequently...

Do you use Bitwarden with it, by any chance? I daily drove it for quite a while, about mid 2022-late 2023. Poor bitwarden support plus a pile of paper cuts drove me away. When it worked as intended, I liked it, and I'm not opposed to paying for a good browser, but it was too buggy at that time for a subscription to feel like a good deal.

AI company?

I thought Orion is made by Kagi?

They started peddling an AI assistant a while back:

https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/assistant.html

I don't think I'd have called them an AI company on that basis any more than I'd call JetBrains an AI company for the same reason. But I can see why someone might call them that.

Orion is not made by an AI company, it’s made by Kagi.

If you’re an open source or non-profit diehard then yes, it’s not that, but as far as closed source for-profit businesses go, they’re a lot better than most. They are a public benefit corporation that has rejected VC funding, and their main pitch is aligning user and company benefit, despite the mainstream currently railing against it.

I’m not affiliated, just a user.

Vivaldi is closed source as well, yet it's one of the better browsers around.

(and has integrated ad blocker that is "good enough" for all practical purposes)

Not having any issues at all with Orion on iOS. And yeah like others said Kagi is not “an AI company“?

except it doesn't work. but you can install it, yes.

I want to like Orion but I've seen the same bugs for a year now.

I'm using Orion as my daily driver on iOS mainly because of a Safari bug[1]. It used to be very buggy, had frequent app crashes for no reason at all but nowadays (since a year?) works pretty fine, even the UBO plugin works fine.

1: You can long tap and select "Download Linked File" on any link in Safari, including links that are forbidden by Content Restrictions, such as a news.ycombinator.com link from google search. Ping me if a Safari engineer sees this and fixes it!

I use Orion. I hit some crashes until I told it to autoclose tabs after a few days. I’d rather leave that off, but it’s a minor problem.

I run three firefox plugins. They all work correctly.

What is it with said bug, that makes you use another browser because of it? Seems not like a big deal..

A bug that happens for no reason? Aren’t these typically some sort of memory access violation, or am I just showing my age of what used to be the cause? I know nothing of iOS inner workings, but is illegal memory access still possible where this would be the behavior?

Honestly, I was using Orion as a daily driver for a few months now and it's crazy unreliable in my experience. It also somehow uses more RAM than Chrome/Brave doing the same things, but with lots of tiny incompatibilities.

I actually just switched my self back to chrome/brave for what I was using Orion for.

It does work tho. Just not consistently lol

Here's my test: I install Firefox version of the plugin and enable additional filter lists like "annoyances" and "cookie notices", then go to eurogamer.net

1. I still see cookie notice

2. I open uBlock and it says "blocked on this page: 0"

That's "doesn't work" for me.

Hm, interesting. Did you report this to their bug tracker? They're quite responsive and cases like this help them finding edge cases.

My biggest use-case, youtube, works great, and most other sites work as well.

Apple really isn't that important.

People who install Firefox on iOS is likely a very small number. If I were the project manager of Firefox, and with such limited resources and Google's cash going away any day, I would not put in any work either.

Sure, in which case they shouldn't have released it at all. A substandard product simply reduces the brand value.

Adblock feature!= Firefox on iOS

On the contrary, caring about their "brand" more than the actual Firefox software effectively describes what is wrong with Mozilla.

iOS "Firefox" shouldn't be a thing in the first place - definitely not with such a misleading name.

1Blocker has worked tremendously well for me for what feels like a decade now.

https://apps.apple.com/au/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id13655310...

Look like that costs money though?

It’s okay, you can afford it.

Yup and it works on my family plan. No brainer. It’s a set-it and forget-it install. Recommended.

It's absolutely bonkers that an adblocker needs to cost $15/year, when the actual filter lists are maintained by volunteers and there's (presumably) very little in the way of code changes needed.

I dunno, I’m not a fan of paying for wrappers but I get a lot from 1Blocker and I’m happy to pay for it. As far as I know it’s just one dude who builds the app, and he spends a lot of time keeping it working in the face of YouTube tactics, etc.

>and he spends a lot of time keeping it working in the face of YouTube tactics, etc.

Does he? Is he doing original research, or just copying whatever ublock origin/easylist puts out? After all, all the bypass methods are just javascript snippets that extensions inject into the page, so it's not like you have to spend much time porting to iOS or whatever.

You think that doesn’t require time? Doing user support? Keeping up with API changes, etc?

I'm not claiming it requires 0 time, only that it's nowhere near the amount of time that would justify a $15/year price tag.

You’re assuming that the price for a product should be based on the cost to offer it. In most markets, price is a function of the value perceived by buyers and relative pricing of similar products. Cost doesn’t enter into the equation.

I'm well aware of how markets work, but that doesn't make it less bonkers. Bottled water companies take municipal water, do some "filtering", and sell it for a 10x-100x markup. I'm sure the people buying the water thinks they're getting their money's worth, but that doesn't mean we can't point out how absurd it is, nor is " in most markets, price is a function of the value perceived by buyers and relative pricing of similar products" a satisfying counterargument to that.

I don’t see what’s absurd about paying a buck for the convenience of bottled water when and where you want it.

Or paying $15 for a year of someone keeping a content blocker up to date.

Maybe you are completely desynchronized from what people find valuable.

That you start valuing software at $0 because someone is producing it for free is a sad part of open source.

Unless someone else makes an equivalent product and sell it for $14/year, and every user switches to the new product, this statement is moot. A product justifies its price tag as long as people are willing to buy it at that price.

Revenue optimisation is a different concern. Would they sell more if they priced it at $10? Maybe. Would the total revenue ($10 * number of users) be higher than now? Maybe not. There is a local maxima and it appears that they calculated this to be ~$15.

>Unless someone else makes an equivalent product and sell it for $14/year, and every user switches to the new product, this statement is moot. A product justifies its price tag as long as people are willing to buy it at that price.

adguard is free and I don't think I've encountered an ad that it didn't block. There's also open source adblockers like ublock origin lite, and some other one that was mentioned earlier this year but I forgot the name of.

> adguard is free [...] open source adblockers like ublock origin lite [...] and some other one

Yet not "every user has switched to these free products". Apparently the consumers don't feel the same way as yourself, or they are not aware of those options (marketing costs, too). Hence (quoting myself):

> A product justifies its price tag as long as people are willing to buy it at that price.

I'm not a 1Blocker user, but 1Blocker definitely doesn't have to price match anyone else if their customers are happy to pay despite there are many free options.

How many developers do you think would work even a single hour for that price tag?

I'm sure the app has at least 1000 paying subscribers? Take out Apple's 30% cut, and that's more than $10k a year.

I found that over the years, it's easy to look at someone's business and conclude they're making bank.

How many hours a month do you think is needed to “justify” charging $1.25/month?

If your time has so little value, please do create an alternative and offer the same level of support and updates for a price that seems more fair to you. $0.50/month maybe?

>If your time has so little value, please do create an alternative and offer the same level of support and updates for a price that seems more fair to you. $0.50/month maybe?

This thread is literally about someone providing a free alternative.

If you don't dont see any additional value, then chose choose one of the free ad blocking options.

One of the nice things for developers working in the Apple ecosystem is that users are willing to support well crafted software.

Although, sometimes you do run into developers as selfless as Gorhill who still craft excellent software.

Don't you have to pay money to host your app there in the first place which is why there is so few good, free applications?

Also: what would be "additional value" in an adblocker? Either it works or it doesn't.

> Also: what would be "additional value" in an adblocker? Either it works or it doesn't.

uBlock has over 13k commits, include just 15 minutes ago right now.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/commits/master/

Well, what do you think makes them work or not? A lot of constant work.

The restrictions on iOS content blockers mean that it's not possible to add value, it's just basic competence to apply pre-existing filter lists maintained by someone else.

Gorhill's browser extensions are great, have actual features. This isn't possible in iOS.

I use 1Blocker and I'm on a grandfathered plan that's $5 per year. It's absolutely worth it (even at $15).

Having the lists freely available is only part of the battle for the end user. There are different ways of using that free data, and that takes time to develop. A good blocker can also do more than just utilize that free data as well

Charging money fits iOS user culture though. They might even have fewer users if it was free.

The free functionality works well enough for me that I never saw the need to look further (until now).

You can only enable one filter list, but "Ads" is a single filter list, so I just enabled that. Just means I can't enable the "Trackers" (though safari has some built in tracker blocking) or "Annoyances" lists, or add Custom rules.

Though, it's going to be a deal-breaker for anyone outside of the English speaking world, because the regional filters count as a second list.

I bought a life-time plan a few years ago.

Feels like a no-brainer investment.

I have used Wipr for years, and now Wipr 2. Worth the small amount to keep intrusive ads, and it is cross platform.

Seconded. Small one-time license fee per major version.

One of the better install and forget it content blocker. The cherry on the top of the cake is that the developer is pretty responsive too.

Yeah Wiper 2 works really well but it slows down my iPhone 12 considerably. I guess there’s not enough ram for all these filters. Still faster than AdGuard.

Mostly using Wipr 2. Brave works very well but Safari seemed maybe slightly snappier (I know the browser engine is the same). Tried this but seems like it blocked less than Wipr 2 in a quick spot check.

On this topic, I have to recommend Hush! It is an excellent free, open-source and well-maintained app for iOS.

https://oblador.github.io/hush/

iOS Safari 18.5, installed and enabled in both normal and private modes.

Opened a private tab and navigated to youtube.com - got cookie consent regardless.

Closed every app, restarted safari fully - same results. Same on google maps.

Uninstalled.

I had the same experience and wouldn't recommend Hush.

> On this topic, I have to recommend Hush! It is an excellent free, open-source and well-maintained app for iOS.

Is it? I don’t see any maintainer activity is the past six months.

It used to be nice but it breaks too many websites lately for me, unfortunately.

Project page should be this?!?

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

It’s by the man himself (gorhill)

Is this any better than AdGuard?

I’ve heard it’s best to avoid running both but unsure whether this version of uBlock is worth it.

uBlock is open source. Some people might object AdGuard Russian foundation, but they have distanced themselves from the conflict and employ people in Ukraine.

Adguard is Russian? Thanks, just cancelled my subscription.

So I did some research into this and it’s complicated. Seems as though the founder is Russian, the business is registered in Cyprus and is under EU jurisdiction, and the team is all over the world with the majority based in Russia.

Relevant post on the topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/1lgxza0/seeking_cl...

That’s enough for me to not use Adguard, but wanted to clarify so others can make their own decision

Adguard works better right now, at least for my purposes.

I'm not sure why, but uBO Lite randomly stops working at times. I've had to fire up the test page (https://ublockorigin.github.io/uBOL-home/tests/test-filters....) many times after enabling experimental filters, but it just doesn't seem to "stick."

gorhill has proven his integrity time and time again, and that's hard to beat. He works on uBO because he believes in it and not for profit. It's the one thing that I would value, especially in an ad blocker. This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with AdGuard though.

Yeah honestly unless the developer can demonstrate that they don't allow ads through from who pay them to be allowed, pretty much no adblocker is going to be fully trustworthy. There will always be an incentive, if the adblocker is popular enough, for the dev to take money from an advertiser to bypass the block.

If I did have to trust any adblocker though, it would be gorhill's.

It's worse IMO because it doesn't allow for custom rules, which AdGuard does.

I have no complaints about AdGuard, but I will switch to this. uBlock is the best ad blocker across platforms, and gorhill is a legend.

I've been using Ad Block Pro without any problems.

I like that I can use uBlock Origin in Orion on iOS but interacting with any addon in it feels finicky, so I keep it at a pretty minimal level (compared to how aggressively I block on desktop, anyways). Anything else is definitely welcome though so looking forward to it.

Previous discussion on 13-may-2025:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43976898

AdGuard on iOS has worked for me for years in it's free form. It's script based so works like uBlock Origin on desktop.

Yep love it. Any reason to switch to this?

Probably less reason to switch, because AdGuard can no longer command any price for their current offerings.

I ended up just paying for it due to how much I use it. Their dns is also great at blocking I’m app ads.

Liking AdGuard too. Both their DNS offering (basically a Pi-Hole in the cloud), and their iOS content blocker. Especially because I can subscribe to third party blocklists like HaGeZi, and AdGuard will load/transform them into Apple's custom content filtering syntax.

It’s fast but doesn’t block all ads for me.

> Compatibility: Requires iOS 18.0 or later and visionOS 1.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision. Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple Silicon chip.

Firefox Focus as a content filter has always worked for me on Safari. Nowadays I mostly use Brave, though.

I get too many anti-blockers when using Firefox focus to make it anything other than something a specialist would use as a daily driver

This beta is full :(((

The code's all open source: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0...

Just build your own copy, give apple $100/year for a developer license, move to a country in the EU, and then you can "sideload" this open-source code onto your device. You also need something running macOS.

Thanks for the giggle. I built a few apps back in the day, back then you could build and deploy on local device, no need to pay 100$, isn’t this still the case if you do not want to deploy on the appstore? Anyway, your comment is worthy of a xkcd.

… or sideboard for free for a week.

Not sure if this was a sarcastic jab or an genuine proposed solution but I laughed either way.

*Purchase $100/year apple certificate or move to a country in the EU. You can sideload for free for a week or you can buy a 3rd party certificate for $20 dollars. For free you can use sidestore (anywhere, not just the EU) for free, but you need to connect to a WiFi network once a week. You can also build with github actions without a mac

I’ve been using the mullvad adblock via pure dns on iOS and I haven’t seen an ad in years. Is there a reason others are installing a separate app?

Not everyone has mullvad, corporate VPNs can’t be run concurrently with mullvad, not all networks allow a VPN, not all sites can be accessed through a VPN like mullvad, not all countries allow VPNs, etc.

I think he's just talking about using Mullvad's [DNS servers](https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls), which work in most cases.

Thanks. I don’t have mullvad either - anyone can point their dns at their Adblock dns without paying for their VPN

YouTube ads are notoriously tricky to block and can’t be blocked by any DNS-level ad blocker I have tried. If you don’t use YouTube then they probably work well for you, but a lot of people do use YouTube and want those ads gone

Works great both on my mac and iphone. Raymond rocks!

uBlock is fantastic at what it does. I'm looking forward to this. I'm currently using both Wipr 2 and AdGuard together which has worked well. AdGuard allows user defined cosmetic filters that I've come to rely on more and more in the browser, and it makes certain mobile sites so much better. Will uBlock on iOS support this?

I run only Wipr2 and am happy with it, even if its $5 vs free, I'm happy to support a dev who makes a great app. I'll try UBOL for iOS when its available.

Agreed, it blows my mind that more people aren't willing to pay $5-15 ($15 in my case of running Wipr 2 and AdGuard) to clean the web on your phone. The same people in my life who wouldn't think twice about a $15 cocktail.

Nothing wrong with either, but damn the value equation is out of wack to me, it's just so worth it.

It is deeply disappointing how poorly Apple implements privacy tools and technologies.

To wit:

It is 2025 and you cannot configure a DoH endpoint in Safari on either iOS or OSX.

Further, enabling DoH in iOS involves an experts-only plist file download which has many esoteric failure modes that are difficult to track and have poor (nonexistent ?) documentation.

Finally, any regular person (like my wife) will have an almost immediate need to toggle adblocking DNS on and off for (weird site that breaks) but, of course, that is not possible without going through the entire plist file workflow twice (once to remove (not disable) the existing profile and once to re-download it).

Ridiculous. Embarrassing.

I might be misunderstanding your problem, but if you want to easily switch DNS there is an iOS app I was using. Sadly, don’t remember what it was called, but I’m sure an AppStore search will yield possible solutions

We should not need an app - nor a fraught trust model and software supply chain analysis - to set a basic network setting.

I appreciate your help but I'm not downloading some rando app to set a DNS server.

Your child is getting flagged/downvoted for pointing out that Android has actual DNS settings and that person is correct.

Maybe we should not have the app to do that, but we can have it and personally I missed that one tap convenience on my Mac.

FWIW: you can disable DoH without uninstalling the profile. General -> VPN & device management -> DNS -> automatic.

arrghh it's full - how to get in?

First, clone this repository and run 'make mv3-safari' https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0...

Now you have the extension built, and you have two options for getting it onto your device:

1. Pay $100/year for a developer license, create your own testflight for yourself and your friends, upload it, there you go

2. Move to a european country to enable side-loading, pay $100/year for a developer license so you can sign it, and then sign + sideload it. (it's not really true sideloading, but if you're in the EU you can at least do it without testflight https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/ )

Oh, also, if you don't have a mac of some sort, you'll have to buy one. A mac mini is pretty cheap.

You can also buy an android device and install any extension on firefox-for-android for free without paying apple, or anyone, $100/year.

You can install without paying $100/year. You have to reinstall the app every week but settings/data/etc. are preserved. You need a mac.

https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/developers/tutorials/build..., and enable “Developer Mode” in your phone’s settings.

You don't need to do a full reinstall each week, getting another provisioning cert works.

You can run altstore on a machine on your network, or reprovision on the device itself to re-sign the app mostly automatically. The latter does use one of your account's five free app slots though.

https://github.com/sohsatoh/ReProvision-Reborn

i’m currently just using a nextdns profile after using adguard for a long time. i switched because i hoped that i would stop getting the annoying admiral modals telling me to turn off my ad blocker. do any of the these solutions trick the anti adblock solutions?

Works on MacOS as well. Not just iOS.

Yes, but adblocking options on iOS are way more limited so it is more notable.

Works fine so far! I wish they could add the main settings in the app view but that’s a minor point

It's annoying how this adds a puzzle piece icon next to the url all the time.

Yeah, that happens when you install any extension for Safari iOS. I’ve learned to ignore it.

Nice, seems to work pretty well

AdGuard doens't work for me so I'm excited on macOS

I want any version of uBlock on the Sailfish OS browser

oh happy day

Can we get a link directly to the project instead of this testflight page?

The news is "uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS" not "uBlock Origin Lite exists"

The project page newsworthy isn’t newsworthy in any obvious way on its own, though of course anyone (including OP) could post a link to it as a helpful comment. An iOS beta signup link for it is surprising news, though!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com