uBlock Origin Lite Is Finally Available on Safari

uBlock Origin Lite has been a boon for many, but until now, it was only available on Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, leaving a lot of Apple users out. Now, though, it’s finally available for macOS and iOS Safari users.

The uBlock Origin Lite extension has popped up on the App Store, meaning that users seeking to install it on their devices (either a MacBook or an iPhone using Safari) through Apple’s storefront can now do so. The primary distinction of uBOL compared to regular uBlock Origin is its entirely declarative nature. In the context of browser extensions, this means that the extension itself does not perform the active filtering of web content. Instead, it provides a set of rules to the browser, and Safari, in this case, is responsible for interpreting and executing these rules to block network requests and modify page content.

Because the browser engine handles the blocking logic natively, there is no need for a persistent uBOL process to run in the background. As a result, uBlock Origin Lite does not consume CPU cycles or memory resources during the process of content blocking.

Not only is this probably the preferred version of uBlock Origin for many (and the only one if you use Chrome since it’s the one that’s compatible with Manifest V3), but it’s also right now the only version of uBlock Origin that’s available for Safari users. A version of regular uBlock Origin was available for Safari in the past, but it was discontinued several years ago. The discontinuation was due to major changes Apple made to its extension framework. Apple deprecated the older, more flexible extension API that uBlock Origin was built on and transitioned to a new, more restrictive model called Safari App Extensions. It has also never been available for iOS or iPadOS users.

The original developer of uBlock Origin, Raymond Hill, decided not to port the full extension to this new framework back in the day, because the limitations would prevent many of its advanced features from working as intended. Since uBlock Origin is way lighter in nature, though, it can work within the constraints of Apple’s modern, declarative API, making it available for the first time on iOS, iPadOS, and once again on Safari for macOS. You could already use it on macOS by using a third-party browser, but this release is significant nonetheless because many people stick with Safari and don’t bother to check out other browsers.

It’s also notable because free, good adblockers that are compatible with Safari are few and far between. There’s AdGuard, but to take full advantage of it, you need to pay for it, and that’s probably out of the question for many.

You can check out uBlock Origin Lite on the App Store now, and download it to your device. You can also check out the GitHub project by yourself.

Source: App Store