Your Input Needed: How Many Content Blockers Would You Prefer?

[arjpar]

Currently, we offer two extensions bundled within one app: WebShield Content Blocker and WebShield Extra. The advantage of this setup is simplicity — users only need to enable two extensions, similar to how Wipr 2 works. However, the downside is that content blockers are limited to 150,000 rules. If I remember correctly, other extensions like AdGuard for Safari and 1Blocker, use a different approach, with separate content blockers for each category (e.g., Ads, Annoyances, Privacy), allowing 150,000 rules per category.

In our current setup, the 150,000 rule limit applies across all categories. In other words, no matter which filters you enable, they all contribute towards the same 150,000 rule limit. With the proposed system — one content blocker per category — each category would have its own 150,000 rule limit, allowing more filter lists to be enabled. However, this comes with the added complexity of managing multiple content blockers.

That said, the 150,000 rule limit is usually sufficient, as it blocks about 97% of unwanted content. You can even enable additional lists, such as those targeting annoyances, without exceeding the limit. In most cases (99% of the time), the default lists and optional extras should cover most users’ needs.

Optimized Lists

To further improve performance, we use optimized filter lists provided by AdGuard. These lists prioritize efficiency over blocking comprehensiveness, so occasional gaps in coverage may occur compared to the full versions of the lists. Optimized lists are particularly useful for mobile devices, where memory and performance are more constrained. Although extensions like uBlock Origin can handle over 500,000 rules, you typically don’t need that many to block unwanted content effectively.

AdGuard’s optimized filters remove rarely used rules, resulting in faster load times and reduced memory usage, while still effectively blocking the most common ads and tracking elements. These lists are created using statistical data that shows how frequently each rule is applied.

Currently development is at a standstill, because on macOS 15.1 beta there is a bug preventing WebShield from running after I build it in Xcode.

[arjpar]

@0xCUB3 Thoughts? You can't add any custom lists to the current categories except custom.

[0xCUB3]

definitely separate. It's easy to implement and more user control is better I think, especially since it's basically just a bunch of toggles.

On my front, people have liked this implementation in my wBlock, albeit without custom lists.

[0xCUB3]

btw @arjpar is there a place I can reach you directly? You deleted your Discord account so I can't talk to you directly anymore.

[arjpar]

@0xCUB3 Email me at ap2045202@gmail.com . I can give you my Signal username, which should suffice. I also have IRC, but I don't use it that much because it's ephemeral. I could setup a bouncer but it's painful for people coming from Discord/Matrix like me because we expect IM platforms to store old messages.

[fanckush]

I think for the beginning, it's better to go the simple route, which would be the 1st option. getting 99% of use cases for the initial releases with a single content blocker feel like an ok compromise

[arjpar]

Related: I technically already have an MVP if by MVP you mean blocking works. I'm just adding most of the major UI stuff thats present in uBlock Origin. Once that's done, and I tackle most of the stuff in the issues tab, I'll probably get an Apple Developer account & publish to TestFlight.

Adding one content blocker for each category is something I'll do because most people seem to want it. But it's worth noting that you can't add custom lists to any other category besides custom, which means it would be pointless, and the only categories where you would enable more than 2 lists would be annoyances, regional, and custom.

Thoughts @0xCUB3? Do you still think the 1 content blocker per category is good, or 1 content blocker for every other category except regional and custom? For the annoyances category you only need to enable AdGuard annoyances (or one of the sublists, but not both) or Fanboy's annoyances but not both AdGuard + Fanboy.

I mean, since people want 1 content blocker for each category I'll probably still do it, it's pretty trivial to implement anyway. Plus AdGuard & 1Blocker are doing it anyway. Wipr 2 has 2 content blockers.