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Adblock Plus’s Web Browser for iPad and iPhone Will Face Light Competition

adblock plusMany blogs reported on Eyeo’s new Android web browser with its integrated ad blocking tech on Wednesday, but far fewer caught the other story.

According to Computer World, Eyeo is also working on a web browser for iOS:

Eyeo is also working on an iOS version of the browser, which it hopes to make available during the third quarter.

"Developing on iOS is new and a little more difficult for us. But we are well on our way," Williams said.

I missed this detail myself on Wednesday, but caught it when CW’s piece passed through my RSS feeds. And I’m glad that I have it, because now I know that the options for blocking ads are far more limited on iOS than on Android.

Apple obviously won’t allow an ad blocking app to be sold through iTunes, and Safari doesn’t support any ad blocking plugins. Firefox only just now released its iOS app in beta, and there’s no obvious way to install an ad blocking extension in Chrome for IOS (I can’t find it) or Opera Mini (ditto).

Edit: No, Apple will allow ad blocking apps (much to my surprise).

You might think that a web browser with integrated ad blocking tech would be useful for iOS. I agree, so I went and found some. It turns out that there are several easy to find web browsers which offer ad blocking as an integrated feature:

And those are just the three web browsers which turned up in a cursory search; I’m sure there are more.

Have you tried one?

I don’t use a web browser much on my iPad so I can’t speak as to their value, but I did note that the two free options are rated at four plus stars.  And in all honesty, I would much prefer to block ads inside apps than in a web browser. After all, I do spend more time on my iPad in apps than browsing the web.

What did you think of the browsers?

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Comments


frmorrison May 22, 2015 um 1:52 pm

With my iPad, I use FutureMind’s $2 Weblock to block ads in the browser and in apps. However, it only works on Wi-Fi since it uses a proxy server. The downside is once in a while it will block good things, so I have to turn it off to see those items.

Another alternative is to use Safari’s Reader view, this only shows the text of a website.

Nate Hoffelder May 22, 2015 um 2:02 pm

Wait, so there’s an app which blocks ads on iOS? I’m surprised; that struck me as a type of activity that Apple will not allow.

Thanks for telling me; I’ll change the post.


Amia BooMaster May 22, 2015 um 3:03 pm

Oh I use a proxy based app called "adblockerapp" or something. It’s good because it works in safari AND in (some) apps. I don’t like being tied down on one browser for ad blocking. The only downside is that if you had a lte iPad, it would only work on wifi.

Nate Hoffelder June 29, 2015 um 2:57 pm

I’m a month late on saying this, but thanks!


How Ad Blocking Apps Will Work on iOS 9 (video) | Ink, Bits, & Pixels June 29, 2015 um 3:41 pm

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