Countless websites on the web are filled with unwanted content. It could be flashy ads, annoying social media buttons, or clunky site elements that make it difficult to navigate. Worse still, they take a long time to load. However, you don’t have to put up with them if you don’t want to. Solution—content blocking.
If you use Safari on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, you can easily use a number of third-party content blockers to load unwanted clutter into the browser.
But while content blockers are synonymous with ad-blocking extensions, they work quite differently and have certain advantages and disadvantages. Let’s examine them below.
How Safari Content Blockers Work
Content blockers are small apps with lots of rules, each with their own specific triggers and actions. These rules tell Safari about the exact formats of content that should be blocked. For example, a rule that includes a certain type of ad will have a trigger that helps the browser identify it, and as a result, stops the ad from loading.
While most content blockers are designed to block ads, web trackers, and third-party cookies, some block various site elements, such as social media plug-ins. Available features vary between content blockers. Some apps let you specify what you want to block, while others even let you create custom rules.
Safari on iPhone and iPad started to support content blockers as of iOS 9 and this is the only way to block ads in the browser. On Mac, Safari versions 9, 10, 11, and 12 support both ad-blocking extensions and content blockers – but as of Safari 13, the browser only supports content blockers.
Safari Content Blockers Help Sites Load Faster
When you start using a content blocker, websites usually load faster in Safari because the browser doesn’t have to load and handle certain content formats. Generally, sites with lots of ads, trackers, and heavy social media plug-ins will show a notable improvement in performance.
When it comes to Safari on Mac, content blockers also allow websites to load faster compared to ad-blocking extensions. This happens for two reasons. First, Safari compiles the rules in content blockers so that it can easily read them. Second, Safari prefetches these rules so it doesn’t have to communicate with the content blocker in real time.
Safari Content Blockers Improve Privacy
Content blockers also play a role in protecting your privacy. For example, certain sites and ad networks use tracking and fingerprinting scripts to monitor and profile user activity – content blockers that specifically target trackers and ads help put an end to this.
On the Mac, choosing a content blocker over an ad-blocking extension also provides privacy benefits of its own. Unlike ad blockers, Safari does not access the rules inside the content blocker in real time. This prevents content blockers from profiling users by activity.
Safari Content Blockers Increase Security
Besides improving your privacy, content blockers are very safe to use. They have no access to your browsing activity as Safari preloads all the rules and thus prevents them from accessing sensitive information in any way or form.
Content blockers once again take precedence over ad blockers in terms of security on macOS. In ad blockers, it is the extension, not the browser, that blocks the content. But when you use a content blocker, it’s the browser that does the hard part. Even if you use a well-known ad blocker for Safari, there is always a chance that an extension might be hijacked. But with content blockers, this doesn’t cause a problem as they can’t see your browsing activity in the first place.
In ad blockers, it is the extension, not the browser, that blocks the content. But when you use a content blocker, it’s the browser that does the hard part.
Additionally, the use of content blockers that target ads can also improve security. This is useful when it comes to malicious code in ads. In the case of a malicious ad attack, it is less likely to get infected.
Limited Functionality of Safari Content Blockers
If there is one downside to using content blockers, it is that they are not as versatile as ad blocking extensions. This is particularly evident on macOS, where the ability to whitelist sites is only available in a limited fashion. You can only do this for all domains, not specific URLs. For example, this can be problematic if you want to support certain YouTube channels.
Some content blockers don’t even have whitelisting tools in the first place. But on iOS, you can override content blockers and even whitelist sites via Safari’s site customization menu.
Limits Applicable Rules
Another major disadvantage of using content blockers is that there is a maximum limit of 50,000 on the number of rules they can enforce. While that may sound like a lot, the filter lists used by certain ad-blocking extensions far exceed it. This is why you may see strange ads creeping in when using content blockers.
However, this limitation offers a performance advantage, as developers often write rules in more efficient ways to cover more areas. Certain content blockers can counter this by adding multiple lists, but this can reduce any performance benefits.
Should You Use Content Blockers?
Content blockers provide a number of benefits. You increase the overall speed when loading sites in Safari and also increase both privacy and security. Using them can really help improve your browsing experience and are pretty indispensable on iPhone and iPad.
But on Mac, even though content blockers are superior in performance and privacy, you may not want to give up on your ad blocker just yet, as it has no limitations on rules and offers better whitelisting features. Also, content blockers are pretty annoying as you have to open them separately outside of Safari in case you want to make changes to the content settings.
If you’re already on Safari 13 (or upgraded to macOS Catalina), it’s either content-blocking or non-existent. Some of the better content blockers on the market are Ghostery Lite (macOS only), AdGuard, and 1Blocker. However, you need to experiment with them to find the one that suits you best.
Next: Safari on iOS isn’t the only browser that can block ads. Here are five other browsers with integrated content blockers.
