[HN Gopher] uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS
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uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS
Author : Squarex
Score : 378 points
Date : 2025-06-21 08:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (testflight.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (testflight.apple.com)
| isaachawley wrote:
| Can we get a link directly to the project instead of this
| testflight page?
| medlazik wrote:
| The news is "uBlock Origin Lite Beta for Safari iOS" not
| "uBlock Origin Lite exists"
| altairprime wrote:
| 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!
| martin_a wrote:
| Project page should be this?!?
|
| https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home
| karimdaghari wrote:
| It's by the man himself (gorhill)
| dom96 wrote:
| Nice, seems to work pretty well
| erdaltoprak wrote:
| Works fine so far! I wish they could add the main settings in the
| app view but that's a minor point
| scosman wrote:
| oh happy day
| jen729w wrote:
| 1Blocker has worked tremendously well for me for what feels like
| a decade now.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/au/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id13655310...
| xnx wrote:
| Look like that costs money though?
| internet2000 wrote:
| It's okay, you can afford it.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Yup and it works on my family plan. No brainer. It's a set-it
| and forget-it install. Recommended.
| gruez wrote:
| 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.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| 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.
| gruez wrote:
| >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.
| MBCook wrote:
| You think that doesn't require time? Doing user support?
| Keeping up with API changes, etc?
| gruez wrote:
| 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.
| mynameisbob wrote:
| 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.
| gruez wrote:
| 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.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| 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.
| selcuka wrote:
| 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.
| gruez wrote:
| >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.
| bartvk wrote:
| How many developers do you think would work even a single
| hour for that price tag?
| gruez wrote:
| 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.
| bartvk wrote:
| I found that over the years, it's easy to look at
| someone's business and conclude they're making bank.
| brookst wrote:
| 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?
| gruez wrote:
| >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.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| 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.
| Krasnol wrote:
| 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.
| robenkleene wrote:
| > 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/
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, what do you think makes them work or not? A lot of
| constant work.
| ctippett wrote:
| I use 1Blocker and I'm on a grandfathered plan that's $5
| per year. It's absolutely worth it (even at $15).
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| lupusreal wrote:
| Charging money fits iOS user culture though. They might
| even have fewer users if it was free.
| phire wrote:
| 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.
| Destiner wrote:
| I bought a life-time plan a few years ago.
|
| Feels like a no-brainer investment.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Previous discussion on 13-may-2025:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43976898
| elektor wrote:
| 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.
| Squarex wrote:
| uBlock is open source. Some people might object AdGuard Russian
| foundation, but they have distanced themselves from the
| conflict and employ people in Ukraine.
| slowmotiony wrote:
| Adguard is Russian? Thanks, just cancelled my subscription.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| 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/Adguar
| d/comments/1lgxza0/seeking_cl...
|
| That's enough for me to not use Adguard, but wanted to
| clarify so others can make their own decision
| vehemenz wrote:
| 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."
| soraminazuki wrote:
| 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.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| 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.
| gruez wrote:
| It's worse IMO because it doesn't allow for custom rules, which
| AdGuard does.
| plutokras wrote:
| 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.
| 65 wrote:
| I've been using Ad Block Pro without any problems.
| scosman wrote:
| Works on MacOS as well. Not just iOS.
| Squarex wrote:
| Yes, but adblocking options on iOS are way more limited so it
| is more notable.
| wao0uuno wrote:
| It's fast but doesn't block all ads for me.
| HexDecOctBin wrote:
| 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
| freeAgent wrote:
| 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.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| 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.
| freeAgent wrote:
| 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).
| SG- wrote:
| Not most, they have figured out a few and they don't work
| very well.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| 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.
| freeAgent wrote:
| What do you need that doesn't work?
| toofy wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _from what i understand orion is overflowing with bugs_
|
| I use it as a daily driver on macOS. Not noticing the bugs
| anymore.
| trws wrote:
| 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.
| godelski wrote:
| I use it on iPhone, it has lots of bugs. But it's worth
| it for the ad blocking
| Larrikin wrote:
| Why not just use AdGuard or PiHole?
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| 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.
| stranded22 wrote:
| AI company?
|
| I thought Orion is made by Kagi?
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| 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.
| handsclean wrote:
| 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.
| graynk wrote:
| 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.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| 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!
| hedora wrote:
| 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.
| akmann wrote:
| What is it with said bug, that makes you use another
| browser because of it? Seems not like a big deal..
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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?
| jeffhuys wrote:
| It does work tho. Just not consistently lol
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Apple really isn't that important.
| rs186 wrote:
| 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.
| azretd wrote:
| I have used Wipr for years, and now Wipr 2. Worth the small
| amount to keep intrusive ads, and it is cross platform.
| walterbell wrote:
| Seconded. Small one-time license fee per major version.
| VignuB wrote:
| 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.
| wao0uuno wrote:
| 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.
| temp0826 wrote:
| 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.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| > 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.
| shpx wrote:
| It's annoying how this adds a puzzle piece icon next to the url
| all the time.
| gessha wrote:
| Yeah, that happens when you install any extension for Safari
| iOS. I've learned to ignore it.
| seam_carver wrote:
| AdGuard doens't work for me so I'm excited on macOS
| sandstrom wrote:
| 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/
| junaru wrote:
| 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.
| gaws wrote:
| I had the same experience and wouldn't recommend Hush.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > 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.
| whstl wrote:
| It used to be nice but it breaks too many websites lately for
| me, unfortunately.
| xoatic wrote:
| Works great both on my mac and iphone. Raymond rocks!
| flixing wrote:
| arrghh it's full - how to get in?
| TheDong wrote:
| 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
|
| Or
|
| 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.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| 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.
| pmdr wrote:
| Firefox Focus as a content filter has always worked for me on
| Safari. Nowadays I mostly use Brave, though.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| daakus wrote:
| 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.
| jjice wrote:
| 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?
| ents wrote:
| 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.
| jjice wrote:
| 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.
| swasheck wrote:
| 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?
| arthurtully wrote:
| 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.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Yep love it. Any reason to switch to this?
| vachina wrote:
| Probably less reason to switch, because AdGuard can no longer
| command any price for their current offerings.
| dawnerd wrote:
| 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.
| toastal wrote:
| I want any version of uBlock on the Sailfish OS browser
| thenthenthen wrote:
| _This beta is full_ :(((
| TheDong wrote:
| The code's all open source:
| https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/e33bfc1f0176e56d479f0...
|
| Just build your own copy, give apple $100/year for a developer
| license, move to a country in the EU, and then you can
| "sideload" this open-source code onto your device. You also
| need something running macOS.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Thanks for the giggle. I built a few apps back in the day,
| back then you could build and deploy on local device, no need
| to pay 100$, isn't this still the case if you do not want to
| deploy on the appstore? Anyway, your comment is worthy of a
| xkcd.
| viktorcode wrote:
| ... or sideboard for free for a week.
| saintfire wrote:
| Not sure if this was a sarcastic jab or an genuine proposed
| solution but I laughed either way.
| rsync wrote:
| 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.
| viktorcode wrote:
| 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
| rsync wrote:
| 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_.
| viktorcode wrote:
| 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.
| oktoberpaard wrote:
| FWIW: you can disable DoH without uninstalling the profile.
| General -> VPN & device management -> DNS -> automatic.
| pea wrote:
| 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?
| uselesswords wrote:
| 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.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| 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
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