Crystal ad blocker for iOS - pure content fighter

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Every day, advertising is becoming more and more: all kinds of ads and banners have filled most of the resources. With enviable regularity, they come out on the screen, as if hypnotizing: look, come in, buy! Free your favorite sites from intrusive ads will help the Crystal application.

There is an opinion that nowadays there is almost no question without an answer, we are so used to turning to the Web for any reason. On the one hand, thanks to this, people have become almost omnipotent. On the other hand, we have to pay for everything in our life.

What are we paying for such quick access to almost everything that you can be interested in? First of all, the most expensive - our time with you. The fact is that every day information, both valuable and frankly empty, becomes more and more, it multiplies and multiplies on the Internet, making it difficult to isolate and assimilate something truly important.

I'm sure everyone paid attention to different windows and pictures with rapidly changing inscriptions that offer you to buy hot tours or a laptop at an anti-crisis price. For most people, it has long been no secret that this is contextual advertising. Many sites use third-party tools that collect and analyze all the data entered by the user of a particular device on the Internet for any reason. This is why we have to pay attention to all the nonsense that we are most likely not interested in.

But now this problem has been almost completely solved: with the release of iOS 9, the Crystal application from Murphy Apps has been updated - a solution sharpened for the new version of the operating system for combating contextual advertising in the Safari browser.

The alpha version of the application was announced by the developer on July 21 of this year. It all started as an experiment on how effective it would be for Safari's performance to block content that was not directly related to the content of certain sites (mostly news resources).

"It's a really noble business," I thought as I downloaded Crystal to my iPhone 5s. It remains only to check what the application is capable of in a real battle (the manufacturer promised an increase in page loading speed and, of course, getting rid of the screen of ads).

To begin with, the oldest version of iOS implies an internal war with unwanted content by means of specially created extensions for Safari. One of them is the hero of our today's publication.

Without thinking twice, I decided to visit several sites, which I had visited with sufficient regularity before, in the "as before" mode, and then with the participation of Crystal. The extension is enabled in the Safari preferences menu, under the Content Blocking Rules tab.

First of all, it was decided to compare the appearance of the pages displayed in the browser, then pay attention to the loading speed.

I use online dictionaries and encyclopedias very often. The results obtained could not fail to please me.

Here's what I saw before and after:

As you can see, the result is obvious. By the way, if something undesirable does appear, then you can inform the developer about it using the Crystal Report Site function:

No less joyful was the visit to the classifieds site (there is usually a lot of undesirable things).

To comply with the rigor of the experiment, I also visited the news resource, or rather, its mobile version with a responsive design. The result did not disappoint:

As you can see, there are no more pictures and "cuts" on the pages, everything is very easy to read, as it should be in reality.

As for the speed, I will say right away: we did not carry out any complex tests for the load time, taking the developers' word for it. I relied on my user experience.

Whenever I reloaded one page or the other with the Crystal application running, it seemed to freeze for a moment before being displayed in all its "bannerless" glory. Yes, a slight delay is felt. Nevertheless, the presence of this micropause is quite justified.

By the way, I mean "heavy" sites with an abundance of pictures and buttons. With "light" everything is generally fine: once - and you're done.

It's time to take stock. Crystal is a solid application, "marrying" which with the Safari browser is a matter of one minute. But the joy of pure content without advertising, from habit, will last for at least a week.

Of course, the disadvantages are no, no, yes, and they slip: here and there quotes indices or banners sewn into the site for the purpose of making a profit may be displayed. But this is a completely different matter.

Nevertheless, Crystal copes with its task at least with a solid four with a plus.