Probably a year ago, I heard about Adguard and ended up buying it because it seemed to work really well. However, about 3-4 months ago, more sites just stopped working properly. I would just get blank white pages of no content. This was happening on both Mac (El Cap) and my iPad to the point where I just stopped using it.
A part of me assumes that sites got smart and changed their code to somehow prevent things like Adguard to work well.
So my first question is whether other people experienced this problem and was there some sort of fix?
Secondly, I have searched this forum for other options so I don’t want to ask for other options. But I’ll ask it another way. If you use ad blocking software and would give it at least a 9 out of 10, what is it? Mac and/or iOS.
Depending on which Adguard service type you’re using, you probably have different options. From what I recall, Adguard has both a content blocking solution as well as a DNS solution.
I generally dislike the app/Safari content blocker route, although if this is what you require I’ve personally had the best experience using 1Blocker on Safari, and uBlock Origin on other browsers. Both are good; anecdotally I’ve had more issues with 1Blocker, but issues happen frequently for both, hence my disdain for this approach.
As far as DNS level blocking, I’m a relatively new user of NextDNS, and this has been incredible. It’s only been a few weeks, but so far I’ve yet to run in to a single issue. It’s also awesome that it works everything, including apps like Apple News.
Thanks. I wasn’t using the DNS solution but I assume I could look into that. I was only using the content blocking while using Safari on both platforms.
I have had the same issue since one or two months ago. With AdGuard on, I can’t access to the most websites. I don’t know if it has something to do with the website certificates. I thought the issue could be solved after I update my MacOS. But after I updated my Mac to Montery, the issue was still there. In the end, I had to uninstall the app completely. Now I’m using AdBlock Pro. It is not as good as AdGuard because sometimes the websites don’t function properly. But it’s better than nothing.
I used AdGuard for a year, but in the last few months the same symptoms of blank webpages, unable to access even banking web pages, led to a decision to get rid of AdGuard and go back to 1Blocker.
I think part of the problem is Safari 15 – at least, the AdGuard issues got worse with Safari 15.
I have Adguard for Mac (not the extension, but the full-service doohickey), and am running Adguard DNS on my router and will occasionally run into issues (say, oh, on this site in particular), but when I turn off the settings within Safari itself, all is well…
This is interesting to read - I’ve had some oddities while browsing the web and assumed Safari was a bit goofy. Maybe it’s AdGuard? Would love to hear more people discuss their ad blocker of choice…
Using AdGuard extension in Safari (on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS), uBock Origin in Firefox (macOS and Windows), and NextDNS everywhere.
Occasionally sites don’t work. Often it turns out to be a EU-based site where the cookie pop-up is blocked and the sim does not work without accepting that cookie…
I use Pi-Hole running on a radpberry pi as my DNS (unbound) and ad filter. For me this is a 9,5 out of 10 (the -0,5 for some minor manual checks every 2 months, but probably my own issue because I have not automated them yet)
I rarely see ads, 99% of sites work without issue and it’s very fast