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MortyWaves

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?

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It seems to require iOS 18.6, it’s working for me after updating.

Thank you, this should be at the top.

Can confirm. Installed uBlock onto an 18.5 device, got the 'not supported' message. Upgraded to 18.6 and now it works.

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”

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.

9 year old phone? Don't worry, google won't care about you either.

The 3rd generation iPhone SE was released in 2022.

the 2022 iPhone SE supports iOS 18

Both iPhone SE (3rd generation) [2022] and iPhone SE (2nd generation) [2020] support iOS 18.6.

So that commenter must not have those generations and your comment doesn't help.

iPhone SE (1st generation) [2016] is stuck on iOS 15 but still receiving security updates, like 15.8.4 from the spring.

at least they don't prevent firefox from supporting a 11 years old version.

I gotta say, using full fat uBlock Origin in Firefox on my android is pretty great.

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)

Apple has way better backwards compatibility than Android. Your 9 year old iPhone SE is still getting security updates.

iPhone SE 1st edition?

2nd edition here, and I updated to 18.6 days ago.

I didn’t know there was a 18.6. I usually get notification.

Update notifications seem to be delayed in iOS. Batches of devices get them at different times for A/B testing and reduce bandwidth requirements.

This is based on my personal observation of different devices. I could be wrong.

And note that all of HN is updating it is taking forever.

> 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.)

Does an app for that even need to exist? Why can’t extensions be a standalone thing in the store?

Because Apple's distribution model centers around everything being bundled as an app

> 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.

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.

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".

Brave is awesome. Skip the silly crypto integration and enjoy the amazing integrated ad-blocking.

Firefox Focus has this feature too! (ie: play YouTube videos from lock screen controls, keeps playing with screen off)

Wipr 2. One time payment for macOS and mobile. And it even blocks ads on YouTube (when watched via Safari).

One time until Wipr 3, coming from a Wipr 1/2 user, just to be clear.

Why would you need to upgrade to wipr 3 if wipr 2 does what you want and need?

Ad blocking is an arms race and your ad blocker needs continuous updates to continue working on large sites.

Adblockers don’t just keep working forever.

From what I can find, the original Wipr was released for iOS in Sep 2015 and the macOS version followed in Aug 2018.

Wipr 2 is a complete rewrite and was released in Nov 2024. So, in theory, for £1.99 you could've gotten 9 years of ad-blocking on iOS and for another £1.99 the same on macOS for 6 years.

And since this requires maintenance of the blocklists and associated code, I am totally fine with paying a small amount once every few years. And I'm not even forced to pay as the older versions usually continue to run - albeit on life support.

yea...I in theory would be excited about ublock coming to safari but Wipr is working so well I'm kind of reluctant to change...I do want to support gorhill working on MacOS though...

Good! Wipr was very cheap, so was Wipr 2, if paying a tiny fee every few years for a well-made app that does its job well keeps the developer in business and able to keep maintaining it, then I'm happy to do it.

That said, I'm not actually convinced there will be a Wipr 3, at least not without some significant change to the ecosystem first. Wipr 2 was a complete rewrite of Wipr, there's no reason to expect it will need yet another complete rewrite.

Seconded. It’s so very great! I finally switched off 1Blocker to use it.

As someone currently on 1Blocker (and decently happy with it, esp. the 'vpn' hack to block in app content too); what made you switch and how does it improve over 1BLocker?

Honestly, I forget. I talked to the author on Mastodon when it came out, and mentioned it reminded me of 1Blocker. She set me straight on the many advantages and I figured why not and bought it, since it’s so cheap. It’s nice stuck with it.

I don’t remember what those advantages were, except that I was persuaded thst they seemed like good ideas.

Sorry. I know that couldn’t be more vague if I tried.

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.

This is a bit misleading. Safari content blockers have been available on iOS since 2015. In 2021, JavaScript-based Safari web extensions were added.

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

[EDIT to clarify: here I’m talking about writing a javascript based extension, not a content blocker]

That’s not my experience (in the admittedly only browser extension I’ve ever written).

After getting it working to my satisfaction in Chrome and Firefox, I created the Safari macOS/iOS versions by running

    $ xcrun safari-web-extension-converter --bundle-identifier <bundle ID> .

in my repo. Then I opened xcode, configured the signing/capabilities, and built it. IIRC I had to create the directory for the output because xcode didn't do it itself, but once that was done I could install it to both macOS and iOS. Honestly I was surprised it was so little effort. I don’t doubt that an extension with more functionality than mine might require a jumping through a lot more hoops, but it definitely can be easy to successfully target Safari IME.

Interesting. Maybe I tried to do something too complex, I don't remember.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...

Here they talk about the "container" that needs to be in Swift/Obj-C. I remember I used to have some problems with the "container" application

I think the issue starts to be when you want your extension/app to have any kind of settings that is retained? I don't remember, really.

Yeah, I didn’t go the “Creating a Safari web extension” route, rather I went via “Packaging a web extension for Safari”: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/pac...

I note that they say the command has changed from the one I used, it’s now:

    xcrun safari-web-extension-packager

My extension has storage/settings, and it works fine. I have edited no Swift code at all.

Even better, thanks for the correction.

Update your iphone and it will work

The whole point of going iPhone is not to have to deal with these kinds of situations.

Bad news: these kinds of situations are inevitable. You've abdicated control of your digital life for a comforting lie

The whole point of using an iPhone is that you don't have to update it?

Choice and platform fragmentation in one neat bundle. I am almost surprised that Apple doesn't just force updates on everyone when it is possible just to maintain that additional bit of uniformity and conformity for its "think different" crowd.

No, the App Store allowing you to download an app with an extension target that doesn’t match the current system. At the very least there should be a warning or a button to update iOS if that’s possible on the current device.

Surely a packaging mistake.

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.

I'm curious what you believe the alternative is - "new features magically appear in released versions of an operating system without the software being updated"?

Seems to work fine on Linux unless you stick to kernels that are multiple decades old.

Whether it's technical or social the situation on iOS is clearly inferior.

You're being disingenuous. There is more to an operating system than a kernel; new features in Linux software frequently require supporting software or libraries to be updated.

Even the user space updates (outside gnome which most people avoid) don't make breaking changes at nearly the rate you see in iOS.

>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...

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?

There was a bug in Safari's registerContentScripts that was only just recently fixed in 18.6. uBOL needs that bugfix.

There was also bugs in the declarative net request implementation that was also just recently fixed - quite a few bugs have been holding uBlock back. The reason why uBlock hadn't come sooner was because DNR hadn't been implemented which would have required the developer to go out of their way to specifically re-write uBlock Origin to work with Apple's content blocking API but now Apple has implemented DNR it should open up the possibility for more choice in the content blocking extensions market.

The oldest supported iPhone is nearly 7 years old. Can you point to another officially supported phone that’s older?

Finally you can block ads on mobile? I've been using AdGuard for iOS Safari for ten years or so.

And I've been using Wipr and 1Blocker since iPhone SE-1 with Safari...

>> “uBO Lite” is not available for this version of Safari.

> This feels like a series of failures

Your "device" is too old, because you failed to pay Apple recently enough.

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