Since installing Safari 12 and switching to the compatible version of my adblocker(s), many ads that were once successfully blocked by each of those adblockers are now visible, with the result that many frequently visited sites are (to this ad-allergic user) unusable.
Is this likely to be a temporary situation as the features for the compatible adblockers are (quickly!) improved and stabilized, and capabilities of my old adblockers are restored? Or is this the result of limitations imposed by the new Safari 12 architecture, and thus likely to persist (or improve glacially)?
Best Answer
The situation is likely to persist.
Content blockers that are offered by Safari are limited to 50000 entries. uBlockOrigin needs many more for example. 1Blocker for iOS circumvents that with a trick, using many of these and combining them. This is another builtin technical limitation, making 1Blocker inherently less effective.
In any case, these are different from the concept used in the traditional blockers – requiring a rewrite. Apple says these would be "faster and safer". Maybe. All we see is that our tried and tested favourite extensions do not work anymore, and if there are any successors even ready, they are apparently not up to the task on the level many were accustomed to.
Coupled with the newly enforced restrictions for devs requiring App Store distribution, this disincentivises independent developers. The latter are artificial policy enforcements. This raises the cost for the devs and will likely result in the withdrawal of most useful plugins altogether.
TamperMonkey and uBlockOrigin or JSBlocker devs are not happy. And for those three at least, it seems they have dropped the ball, citing the need for App Store distribution and certification as too costly, too much hassle, not worth it, bad on some fundamental principles:
And in its current iteration, the technology of content blockers as too limited in principle for blocking all that needs to be blocked. uBlockorigin cites the same reasons as JSBlocker:
And:
We all need to complain to Apple directly and massively. It's a pity we haven't done so during the shocking beta phase.
Use Product Feedback - Apple, email, chat, your blog, or even better yet a developer feedback channel, file bugs.
Zotero connector is going to circumvent the stupidity enforced by switching to bookmarklets, other things break left and right and in the middle. This is just much too strict:
Many might think it's about money, but for some, it's indeed more the technical parting of the ways:
Complain, complain, …or switch to another browser.
After you have rightfully complained to Apple, workarounds:
For the time being, you may want to stay with/downgrade to Safari 11.1.2 (not for very long though.) Or re-enable uBlockorigin in the preferences ignoring the misleading warnings about slow down or security. (This is cumbersome and I always lose all my custom settings on application relaunch. You will need the extensions-gallery version)
Not recommended, only listed to illustrate the dire situation!
The shady non-'origin' version of ublock seems to be back in the game, although with the 50000 limit mentioned above.
Plus: Use with caution, not sanctioned by upstream uBlockorigin https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock :
ublock.org says:
Equally shady Adblockplus is also back. Be informed that the owner company sells your data and sells ads ("only acceptable ones of course"). And limitations are still big. From the comments on that release: