
Putting Mobile Ad Blockers to the Test - angelozehr
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/technology/personaltech/ad-blockers-mobile-iphone-browsers.html
======
newscracker
It's a pity that all these articles comparing iOS ad blockers look only at the
paid apps, some of which have some dubious backgrounds (like selling out to
whitelist specific sites). A comparison with free ad blockers would do a whole
lot of good instead.

~~~
lstamour
I suspect it's because there are too many to pay attention to in these short
articles. There's 21 listed at [http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/09/16/a-list-
of-content-bloc...](http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/09/16/a-list-of-content-
blockers-for-ios-9/) and it's probably not a complete list. Purity, Peace,
Crystal and later 1Blocker were all day-one appearances, so they got the most
coverage, including here on HN.

There's even a long list of open source ones -- and having just looked into
this now, I'm thinking of switching to one of these:

[https://github.com/krishkumar/BlockParty](https://github.com/krishkumar/BlockParty)
[https://github.com/yene/CBlocker](https://github.com/yene/CBlocker)
[https://github.com/saagarjha/OpenAdblock](https://github.com/saagarjha/OpenAdblock)
(will work on iPhone 5 and 5C, it claims) [https://github.com/dgraham/Ka-
Block](https://github.com/dgraham/Ka-Block) (for Safari on OS X)
[https://github.com/jlnr/SansFonts](https://github.com/jlnr/SansFonts) (kills
web fonts on iOS)

------
mox1
I'm not surprised they specifically call out boston.com

I've been reading that site weekly / daily for a few years now. On Desktop
browsers its pretty painless (with an ad blocker on), but recently on my ipad
the usability of the site has dropped to zero.

It constantly loads an ad that redirects me to the app store, while my browser
sits on a blank page. If you hit the back button, boom forward to blank page,
context switch to App store.

And the apps it wanted me to download were highly questionable in nature.

I'm amazed that a site of that high of brand recognition would stoop to that
level (auto-redirect to crappy app store app). Will be finding a new site for
my Boston news after that.

~~~
fsaintjacques
This is due to ad arbitrage. Boston.com is not the problem, the ad network
behind is. They're just slow to catch it I guess.

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imglorp
Mobile does not mean Apple, which is what the entire article is about.

~~~
soylentcola
Yeah, the title made me think there would be an overview and comparison of
existing ad-blocking options now that iOS can be included with Apple-
sanctioned software.

Instead it was just an overview of some iOS ad blocking apps. I was actually
interested in how the new iOS stuff compared to the usual adblock/ublock/etc.
for mobile Firefox (even if they ignored more system-wide options that require
superuser on Android or running unsigned code on jailbroken iOS).

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jdeibele
I thought it was ironic that they called out Boston.com. Until a few years
ago, The New York Times owned Boston.com (online domain for The Boston Globe).
Back to New York/Boston rivalry as usual?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Globe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Globe):
"The company was acquired in 1993 by The New York Times Company; two years
later Boston.com was established as the newspaper's online edition. In 2011, a
BostonGlobe.com subscription site was launched. In 2013, the newspaper and
websites were purchased by John W. Henry, a businessman whose other holdings
include the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C."

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jjp
Would be interested to find an ad blocker that is aware of my available
bandwidth. If I'm using my phone/phablet on 3G/EDGE connection then block ads
(especially on the kind of ad payload being reported in this article). But
when I'm at home on fast Wifi connection then I'll take the additional
bandwidth to display the ad as my part of the bargain on reading the content.

~~~
lstamour
Sounds like a feature Apple should add in a future iOS release, especially if
they redesign the Content Blockers section in Safari Preferences on iOS to
allow extensions to put their settings in the Preferences menu directly. It's
rather annoying right now to open an app, go to preferences, then open the app
to change the preferences...

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sallymander
I'm not too sure about the methodology of their battery test - presumably if
they loaded the web pages in an endless loop an ad blocker would just result
in more page requests in the same timeframe (causing more data to be
downloaded and more processing time to be used).

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msravi
Hmm... so is nytimes conspicuously missing from that list or did I miss it?

The guardian gets more and more of my respect every day, not just for the lack
of ads, but for the depth and choice of their articles - that's one
publication I would not mind paying for.

~~~
iza
_> Hmm... so is nytimes conspicuously missing from that list or did I miss
it?_

It's there, 15th from the bottom (2.5/4.3)

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drcube
So iOS ad-blockers only work in the browser? They don't block ads in apps?

~~~
markyc
why would apple want you to block ads in apps? ;)

~~~
drcube
Why does it matter what Apple wants? Oh yeah, it's Apple's phone, I'm just
temporarily using it.

