osmartormenajr said: Good riddance to you and your toy phone. Come back when you grow up. Or are you just a troll that is being willfully obtuse?
Much (if not all) of the app functionality will be built-in to Safari now. Besides, most of the ad blockers are scams, receiving kickbacks from advertisers that wish to be white listed.
Setting your unwarranted insult aside, it's equally as much about privacy as it is about sanity and calm. The content blocking in Safari is just that -- it's for Safari only. It won't allow me to control what various apps on my phone are doing, such as a calculator app or alarm clock app sending/receiving data from the internet when it has no business to, or apps that have trackers or other means of trying to monetize my usage. So pardon me, I'd like to think my disgust is rather justified.
I feel sorry for the hell you live with your toy phone. If you had any understanding of how iOS works (hint: it's not Fandroid, it really works) you wouldn't come out with this poor excuse.
I won't repeat others, just read a comment posted two or three instances below your "reply".
I just saw that this was your first post, so the stink of troll is already reaching the high heavens...
Hooooooly crap am I glad to have read this article. I was just about to make a very expensive mistake. Was about to retire my Galaxy S5 and jump ship to an iPhone.
Assuming you're not a blatant liar, and you were ACTUALLY going to switch from an iPhone from an S5 (massive assumption) instead of just simply shitty trolling, enjoy your Galaxy S5. Let's just ignore the elephant in the room too, which is that you choose to instead use an OS from a company that only exists because of ad revenue, and doesn't give a fuck about your privacy and security. Your little screed is laughable.
I'm guessing you don't actually care about privacy or security either- all you care about is stripping away ads from free ad supported apps, in which ads are the only way the developer can support themselves, instead of actually paying a pittance to remove the ads legitimately. At the end of the day, 99% of Android users who vehemently champion "open" and bash iOS only do so because they're thieves and enjoy side-loading paid apps at no cost, not because they have any real principles. And you obviously fall within this category, seeing as how you want to have your cake (no ads ever in apps) and eat it too (you don't want to pay for anything). How is a developer supposed to support himself if they can't show a single ad, and you don't pay them a single cent? People like you is how the entire industry gets screwed and developers don't make a dime. So spare us your sanctimonious bullshit, because that's all it is.
Guess I should acknowledge a mistake on my part here -- Saying something
harshly negative about a product on a chat forum focused around that product, and doing so as one's first post. Mea culpa.
Anyway, your bit about an "OS from a company that only exists because of ad revenue, and doesn't give a fuck about your privacy and security" is indeed quite right. Which, ergo, is why I'm still on an S5. It's the last Android that's easily rootable (no need for pseudo-VPNs if you got root), and I have it firewalled and adblocked within an inch of its life. Also, yay removable battery. However, newer Android phones are becoming much more locked down, and pretty much *all* phones are doing away with removable batteries, sadly. So, I decided that I should concede to the inevitable and explore ways of doing what I need to do without root ability (such as shunting all network traffic via a pseudo-VPN firewall instead), and also since my primary machine is a Mac, I figured it was probably time to jump ship. Though since Apple is now taking even that bit of control away, I'll pass. And so upsetting was that to me that I made my post here.
As for the stripping of ads from apps, you're damn right I do. Guilty as charged and not the least bit sorry, so visceral is my hatred for ads. And that hatred extends to being completely willing to plunk down a dollar or two for the paid app just to get rid of the ads, though I've often found several paid apps (on Android, mind you) that still do some form of communication to the net even though they have no business doing so. So my trust even for the paid apps is rather low. Therefore, I want my adblock and firewall.
Hooooooly crap am I glad to have read this article. I was just about to make a very expensive mistake. Was about to retire my Galaxy S5 and jump ship to an iPhone. Not anymore.
You'll have an easier time prying away a gun from a young Charlton Heston than foisting an un-adblockable device upon me. I'd rather suffer the throes of internet withdraw than put up with a toxic cesspool of distraction engineered, attention hijacking, consciousness derailing, apoplecticly infuriating internet advertising. HELL. NO.
Good, GTFO and make sure the door (your POS Galaxy) hits your stupid ass on the way out!
If I'm reading this correctly, the ad blocker in question requires the instatalatino of a root cert supplied by the blocker? That is an insanely bad idea.
Hooooooly crap am I glad to have read this article. I was just about to make a very expensive mistake. Was about to retire my Galaxy S5 and jump ship to an iPhone. Not anymore.
You'll have an easier time prying away a gun from a young Charlton Heston than foisting an un-adblockable device upon me. I'd rather suffer the throes of internet withdraw than put up with a toxic cesspool of distraction engineered, attention hijacking, consciousness derailing, apoplecticly infuriating internet advertising. HELL. NO.
You are misunderstanding this issue. To begin with, it has nothing to do with stopping the use of adblockers, just the particular VPN method that these apps use. There are many ad and tracker blockers available. I happily use both Adblocker Plus and Ghostery and don't experience the nightmare of ads, trackers, etc. Also, keep in mind, that much to Google's panic, Apple is building in blocking of trackers into iOS 11. Finally, remember that by using Android and other Google services, all of your information is being put into a master file on you (linked by Google via your "universal identifier") so if you care about privacy/security you are on the wrong platform. Many don't care about their privacy, but many do.
The other day I noticed that VPN was active on my daughter's iPad Pro 9.7". I asked her about it and she said her ad blocker would not work without it. But this article makes me curious if that VPN connection could be a back-door for the bad guys to do naughty things to one's data or personal information. Is it a risk? My natural assumption is that it is indeed a risk, otherwise why would Apple try to now prevent it? Is Apple just being stupid Big Brother again? Or are these VPN connections to "block" ads" being used for more nefarious purposes? I'd like to read an expanded AppleInsider article that answers those questions in detail.
Anything you install is a risk. Anything that connects to a network is a risk.
VPN's work by creating an encrypted tunnel from your device to the VPN service's server where the data is then sent out and received normally. This gives the benefit of your local ISP not being able to track your activity as well as preventing anyone on the local network seeing what kind of data, even if it's encrypted with SSL, from seeing what you're doing, but you still have to trust your VPN provider.
I use PIA every time I'm using public WiFi because I trust them more than I trust whomever could be snagging my local data. With the direction things are going in the US I may start to use on my private WiFi to prevent my ISP from tracking my activity, too.
That wasn't really his comment though, why on earth would those thing need constant VPN access to do their job, that's the question. Reducing the number of open services on the device, or on the router is what I do all the time; they better have a damn good reason for being there and staying up.
He asked if there was a risk if a "VPN connection could be a back-door for the bad guys to do naughty things to one's data or personal information" and I I answered accordingly. If you don't understand why a VPN app would need access to their VPN servers to offer their VPN service (i.e.: to do their job) there are no additional words I can say that will make it more clear.
Stop the condescension bud (see I can do it too huh). There are other ways to get these apps to work; not just one. An ad blocker is not "a VPN app", just like a browser is not a VPN software either despite the fact you can run one inside it. That's not their primary function at all. Been using VPN's since they first appeared in about 93 in Cisco routers and ran vpn tunnels over ssh by the late 90s. So, I'm quite familiar with them.. Thanks for the info though (sic). Its bad security to keep ports/services open anywhere, especially with endpoints of dubious security. Your giving access to your browser to those things; not something trivial at all; a possible entry vector for social engineering, getting a web workers running some bots or bitcoin mining or whatever, without any way really of monitoring this (except battery usage which many people don't look at).
So you're just reiterated my comments where VPNs are always a potential security risk after telling me I was wrong for saying that. Brilliant¡
That's not exactly what you wrote, I'm checking out because you're being a pisser about this.
a) I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm assuming the defaults are safe : This is basically what happens when Android users are forced to allow software to change permissions in order to even use the software. This is why say a VPN is running instead of just a whitelist/blacklist of domains. Ad blocking is moving from being just marginally stupid, to incredibly stupid.
b) I have an idea of what I'm doing, and I refuse to follow safety guidelines : This is when people install adblock on devices, use open WiFi access points, and then check their email/bank accounts. God damn people, turn off your browser extensions when you visit your banking sites, or don't be surprised when that free widget you installed passes your PayPal account to some eastern european hacker.
If you're smart, you would never turn on a VPN to anything but a machine you control. Those VPN's that these ad blockers, movie piracy, game hacks/bots, and so forth are popular with, is an great way to have your email, bank accounts, and game accounts compromised, if not outright stripped. All someone needs to do is create a MITM attack at the VPN point. This will be more successful with websites that allow downgrade attacks.
People have a right to be paranoid, but in all seriousness, installing unverifiable, if not untrusted apps on a device that are capable of MITM'ing your data is a bad thing, and Apple rightfully should be blocking this. Android vendors, and even Microsoft Windows and OSX should be doing this, but unfortunately, the Windows platform and the OS X platform offer painfully inferior browsers as a result of too much integration into the OS that should never have happened in the first place. Hence, use Chrome and Firefox at your own risk.
Comments
I won't repeat others, just read a comment posted two or three instances below your "reply".
I just saw that this was your first post, so the stink of troll is already reaching the high heavens...
Anyway, your bit about an "OS from a company that only exists because of ad revenue, and doesn't give a fuck about your privacy and security" is indeed quite right. Which, ergo, is why I'm still on an S5. It's the last Android that's easily rootable (no need for pseudo-VPNs if you got root), and I have it firewalled and adblocked within an inch of its life. Also, yay removable battery. However, newer Android phones are becoming much more locked down, and pretty much *all* phones are doing away with removable batteries, sadly. So, I decided that I should concede to the inevitable and explore ways of doing what I need to do without root ability (such as shunting all network traffic via a pseudo-VPN firewall instead), and also since my primary machine is a Mac, I figured it was probably time to jump ship. Though since Apple is now taking even that bit of control away, I'll pass. And so upsetting was that to me that I made my post here.
As for the stripping of ads from apps, you're damn right I do. Guilty as charged and not the least bit sorry, so visceral is my hatred for ads. And that hatred extends to being completely willing to plunk down a dollar or two for the paid app just to get rid of the ads, though I've often found several paid apps (on Android, mind you) that still do some form of communication to the net even though they have no business doing so. So my trust even for the paid apps is rather low. Therefore, I want my adblock and firewall.
You are misunderstanding this issue. To begin with, it has nothing to do with stopping the use of adblockers, just the particular VPN method that these apps use. There are many ad and tracker blockers available. I happily use both Adblocker Plus and Ghostery and don't experience the nightmare of ads, trackers, etc. Also, keep in mind, that much to Google's panic, Apple is building in blocking of trackers into iOS 11. Finally, remember that by using Android and other Google services, all of your information is being put into a master file on you (linked by Google via your "universal identifier") so if you care about privacy/security you are on the wrong platform. Many don't care about their privacy, but many do.
a) I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm assuming the defaults are safe : This is basically what happens when Android users are forced to allow software to change permissions in order to even use the software. This is why say a VPN is running instead of just a whitelist/blacklist of domains. Ad blocking is moving from being just marginally stupid, to incredibly stupid.
b) I have an idea of what I'm doing, and I refuse to follow safety guidelines : This is when people install adblock on devices, use open WiFi access points, and then check their email/bank accounts. God damn people, turn off your browser extensions when you visit your banking sites, or don't be surprised when that free widget you installed passes your PayPal account to some eastern european hacker.
If you're smart, you would never turn on a VPN to anything but a machine you control. Those VPN's that these ad blockers, movie piracy, game hacks/bots, and so forth are popular with, is an great way to have your email, bank accounts, and game accounts compromised, if not outright stripped. All someone needs to do is create a MITM attack at the VPN point. This will be more successful with websites that allow downgrade attacks.
People have a right to be paranoid, but in all seriousness, installing unverifiable, if not untrusted apps on a device that are capable of MITM'ing your data is a bad thing, and Apple rightfully should be blocking this. Android vendors, and even Microsoft Windows and OSX should be doing this, but unfortunately, the Windows platform and the OS X platform offer painfully inferior browsers as a result of too much integration into the OS that should never have happened in the first place. Hence, use Chrome and Firefox at your own risk.