Ben Brooks Tests iOS Content Blockers

Ben Brooks over at Brooks Review has been testing all available content blockers for speed and data usage.

The fastest options (aside from the virtually-unusable Script Scrap) seem to be 1Blocker and Adamant. 1Blocker has continually been the fastest since iOS 9 launched, but Adamant is a new addition to the list. Purify also makes a strong showing.

It’s only been a few short weeks since content blockers hit the scenes, but we’ve already seen a great deal of shifting in the popularity and quality of the available options. Number 1 ad blocker Peace, the Ghostery-backed blocker from Tumblr / Instapaper / Overcast developer Marco Arment, was pulled when Marco decided he didn’t want to be in the ad blocker business. Crystal, the runner-up choice, plummetted in popularity when its developer announced that he was going to start accepting money to allow advertisers to keep tracking users as long as their ads weren’t too garish.

I’ve been using 1Blocker on iOS 9. The only issue I’ve experienced so far is the need to reload TouchArcade forum pages, and the developer is looking into fixing that. On my Mac, I’m running Adamant, since it’s one of the few El Capitan optimized ad blockers out there.