What is Reddit's opinion of
WeBlock?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
8 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
From their FAQ:
> Every time you visit a website or launch an app, your device connects to multiple locations over the Internet. That includes downloading of media, text, scripts, etc. In most cases and by default all these connections are made directly with different servers. All modern operating systems (including iOS) allow you to configure a PAC script, which defines how you connect with the Internet. The PAC (Proxy Auto Configuration) file tells your device how to connect to different locations on the Internet, depending on the URL or IP address of the destination server. Weblock creates, manages and hosts your personal PAC file. Any time you attempt to connect to some Internet location, it's address is matched with your custom PAC file. If this location is blocked - your connection will be automatically routed through a dummy proxy server. This makes the connection impossible, so all the undesired content get’s blocked. This method gives you the possibility to block only specific parts of websites/apps. Weblock allows you to route requests for this undesired content through the dummy proxy, while keeping direct connection for everything else.
You can limit the number of advertisements in Safari with a $2 app called Weblock. It looks great and stuff like adding domains to your whitelist and blacklist is easy as pie—plus the lists sync between your iOS devices. Which is a slice of fried gold.
One thing to add is that, sadly, due to Weblock's proxy, it won't work alongside the OpenVPN app (oh how I wish!) My technical knowledge has its limits so perhaps there is a way that I haven't discovered yet. I'm all ears.
So in my case I have to manually switch over to an L2TP VPN in the iOS settings (or go without a VPN altogether.) I do this if I plan on doing more than a few moments of browsing or watching YouTube vids. Asides from this issue, it is more than decent and IMHO totally worth a couple bucks.
edit: damn you, autocorrect
From the FAQ:
> We also do not act as a proxy server for your traffic. Every time Weblock blocks some content, it’s because your device will try to get it through a dummy proxy server. That’s how the blocking works.
Until then, you can buy Weblock. It really does stop 99% of ads and I've had no redirects. It doesn't run your network through a proxy — so it's safe — and it makes browsing quicker too.
Before the discussion starts about it connects to a proxy server
The FAQ page has the answer. >Is my connection still secure? Does my traffic go through your proxy server?
>Weblock does not affect the security of your connections in any way. We also do not act as a proxy server for your traffic. Every time Weblock blocks some content, it’s because your device will try to get it through a dummy proxy server. That’s how the blocking works.
>What do you mean by "dummy proxy"?
>Every time Weblock blocks some content, it's because your device tries to get it through a proxy server, which is not able to handle this a connection.
>That's what we call the dummy proxy. By default Weblock uses IP of 8.8.8.8 and port 53. This IP actually belongs to multiple DNS servers worldwide, which are operated by Google.
>We've decided to use this particular IP for several reasons:
>1. iOS requires the dummy proxy to be a valid IP address accepting connections (so it's not possible to use local IP address of your device, since there is no open port to connect to).
>2. It's really responsive, fast and stable anywhere in the world.
>3. It's NOT ABLE to handle HTTP/HTTPS traffic and it immediately closes the connection (perfect!).
>4. It's widely recognised and well known IP, so you don't have to be concerned about your privacy. We're really sure Google is not logging all web connection attempts made while blocking content from your device, since this dummy proxy is actually a DNS server supporting very different protocol.
>If for some reason you would like to use different dummy proxy, please go to Setup -> Settings to set your custom dummy proxy for blocking content. Please notice, that using a proxy which does not accept incoming connections may result in content blocking failures
Adblock is available: http://www.weblockapp.com
$1.99 app, and it has been free in the past. Sign up for a price alert on one of the various app tracker sites if you don't want to pay. Basically, you tell it what you don't want to see, enter a URL into your phone's proxy field, and the ad servers are redirected to nowhere. I use it on my iPad; the only catch is that because proxy servers are "per network", you have to add the proxy URL each time you go to a new Wi-Fi network. I'm not sure if this works on cellular data since I haven't used it on my iPhone yet.
edit: in their FAQ, they mention that you cannot set up the proxy URL on cellular data connections, so that kind of stinks - http://www.weblockapp.com/faq/#question-8
Weblock is a decent adblocker for iOS. Works in browser or apps when connected to wifi. More info at http://www.weblockapp.com/.
If you have a jail broken phone there may be better alternatives.
Weblock is a decent adblocker for none jail broken iOS. Works in browser or apps when connected to wifi. More info at http://www.weblockapp.com/.
If you have a jail broken phone there may be better alternatives.