The Brooks Review

Month: September 2015

  • Ad blocking

    Seth Godin:

    And so, just as the default for some advertisers is, “if it’s not against the law and it’s cheap, do it,” the new generation of ad blockers is starting from the place of, “delete all.”

  • A Few More Thoughts on My Top Three Content Blockers

    This is part two in a four part series on content blockers in iOS 9. Read part one, part three, and part four.

    When I speed tested the content blockers I laid out the top three fastest ones:

    What I didn’t do is really tell you very much about each of these, ((Apologies I was running late to take the family to a birthday party.)) so I want to go ahead and right that wrong now.

    (more…)

  • Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, & Your IP Address

    Sam Snelling:

    You cannot be against government / big business bulk collection of metadata, and not be pro ad blocker. Privacy is important. And leaking tons of identifying info about yourself all over the internet is not good.

    Yep.

  • iOS Pro

    Clayton Miller:

    The iPad as it stands fits the needs of some professionals. Viewed in a jobs-to-be-done framework, there are some jobs for which many will find it the best hire, but these tend to be all of a kind: They are performed by a single application with a narrow scope, such as a note-taking app to brainstorm or a marine navigation app to pilot a boat.

    I really like the above passage. The idea that what makes the iPad great is how good it is at just one application. That said, I don't agree with much else Miller has to say. While I don't think the iPad Pro will be for everyone, I bet it is for most people.

  • ‘Enabling of Ad Blocking in Apple’s iOS 9 Prompts Backlash’

    John Gruber, commenting on a New York Times post about content blocking:

    If you want to block all advertising, I don’t understand you, but I won’t argue with you either. No one’s going to stop you. But most people just want to block garbage — privacy-invasive trackers, JavaScript that slows our devices and drains our batteries, obtrusive ads that cover the content we’re trying to read.

    Gruber has been very clear that he thinks it is wrong and almost illogical to block ads from The Deck. All I have to say is that Gruber’s site is very fast, loading on average in about 2.3 seconds or faster for me on iOS 9.

    However, with content blocking turned on his site will load almost a full second faster, with three content blockers loading it that full second faster. So yes, Deck ads are nice, but even a very fast site can be much faster.

    Note: I just completed speed testing all content blockers available for iOS to determine which is the best. *Daring Fireball was among my test sites. The article about my testing may, or may not, be behind the paywall when you see this post.*

  • Which iOS Content Blocker is the Fastest?

    This is part one in a four part series on content blockers in iOS 9. Read part two, part three, and part four.

    Which content blocker for iOS 9 is the best? I have no clue, but I did test a bunch to find out which one is the fastest.

    URLs tested:

    Testing Method:

    All tests done on an iPhone 6 Plus, from the same position, on a fast wifi network, in this order:

    1. Clear history and website data
    2. Restart phone
    3. Adjust Safari settings for the test
    4. Launch each site from a bookmark
    5. Timed with iPhone (original)
    6. Assumed margin of error: 0.3 seconds.
    7. Time stopped when Safari stopped showing the X and instead showed the reload symbol

    Note: When I turned on each content blocker, I left Do Not Track on as well, as this is how you really should be using the app to begin with.

    Results

    Here’s the chart for iMore, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 18 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 2.3 seconds.

    Here’s Daring Fireball, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 2.2 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 1.3 seconds.

    Here’s this site, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 5.5 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 2.3 seconds.

    Here’s the Sweet Setup, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 2.7 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 2.5 seconds. A note about this site: some blocks failed to fully load this site, and repeated loading was needed to complete tests with blockers on. This was the only site that did this.

    Here’s the New York Times, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 11.6 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 2.6 seconds.

    Here’s the New Yorker, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 5 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 2.9 seconds.

    Here’s Bloomberg/Businessweek, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 17.6 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 5.8 seconds.

    Here’s Apple.com, shortest bar is the fastest.

    Nothing on it was 2.9 seconds, the fastest blocker loaded it in 2.1 seconds.

    Insights

    When I tried with all blockers on, I did not get the performance of the fastest blocker, and instead got performance on the slower side of the blockers tested. It is my recommendation that you only use one blocker at a time.

    In order to determine a clear winner, I took the average load time of all the sites, and then calculated how fast each blocker was (as a percentage) compared to no blockers.

    As you can see, 1Blocker is the winner. It was (on average) 61.83% faster than having nothing turned on at all. That’s staggering. The worst of the lot seems to be Vivio, which was marginally faster than simply just turning on ‘Do Not Track’ in your browser settings.

    1Blocker is also highly configurable as well. If you want something on the simple end of things, which makes decisions for you to unblock ads from places like The Deck, Adamant is a great option. It was the third fastest overall, and is trying to support the indie sites ad revenue the best it can.

    Top three are (in this order):

    1. 1Blocker
    2. Ad Block Multi
    3. Adamant and Blockr 1.0.1 ties as well.

    For me, it is 1Blocker. I’ll check back again in a month or so. Go get it.

    Updates

    • Here’s some more thoughts on the three fastest.

    • Turns out that 1Blocker whitelists The Deck ads by default. To block them you need to add a custom rule, that rule should have the URL Filter that reads: http.*://connect\.decknetwork\.net/* (You will need a \ before each period to make it work) — putting that in will block those ads. Hat tip to: Marcelo Marfil

  • Good Advertising

    John Gruber:

    Good advertising goes down easy.

    No, not really. Good advertising (well targeted, with no tracking) is acceptable at best.

  • Adamant

    Now that Peace is gone, Adamant should be the go to option for you.

  • Why Peace 1.0 blocks The Deck ads

    Marco Arment on his Safari Content Blocker:

    I was therefore faced with a decision about The Deck. I had to either:

    • Omit The Deck from Ghostery’s database, carving out an exception for the advertiser used by me and many of my friends.
    • Enforce Ghostery’s database consistently, potentially angering my own site’s advertiser and my friends who use it.

    And once I looked at it like that, it wasn’t a difficult decision. It’s uncomfortable, but I’d rather be consistent and fair.

    He made the right decision. Oh, and FYI, if you are using a content blocker to block custom fonts — go for it, but this site will look like shit. I’ve never once tried to optimize it to be useable with fallback fonts. Sorry.

  • Cloak’s super-simple VPN

    I’m a huge fan of Cloak, and though I run my own VPN, I still pay for a yearly subscription to Cloak. I love the ease of use, and frankly some times my VPN server stops working.

    Anyways, Cloak on the Mac has always been amazing: auto blocking of Internet access on non-trusted networks. Auto connect. Etc.

    You could never do that on iOS in the past, but now you can. That’s right, Cloak can now auto secure your connection, change server locations, and block internet access on iOS. No brainier. If you care about privacy, you’ll have a year subscription to Cloak.
    Update: umm some of this might not be new. Buts it’s NEW TO ME. Oops. 

  • I’ve seen the future, and I want it now

    The last time I went to Disney it was the mid-to-late 1990s — I don’t remember much of the logistics from back then, but I knew things would be different on this visit. I had heard about the ‘Magic Bands’ that you wear at Disney, but I still didn’t know the full scope of that magic. As it turns out, the Disney Magic Band really is quite magic.

    The band itself is shitty, mind you, but the things it enables are amazing.

    (more…)

  • Arrest of 14-Year-Old Student for Making a Clock

    Glenn Greenwald:

    But perhaps the worst of all harms is how endless war degrades the culture and populace of the country that perpetrates it. You can’t have a government that has spent decades waging various forms of war against predominantly Muslim countries — bombing seven of them in the last six years alone — and then act surprised when a Muslim 14-year-old triggers vindictive fear and persecution because he makes a clock for school. That’s no more surprising than watching carrots sprout after you plant carrot seeds in fertile ground and then carefully water them. It’s natural and inevitable, not surprising or at all difficult to understand.

  • Nine great things about iOS 9

    Good list, I will also add that the traffic notifications during navigation is awesome. I also get push notifications if traffic is bad when I have travel time based reminders turned on for Calendar entries. Neat stuff.

  • Random Thoughts and Tips for iOS 9

    David Sparks:

    Here are some words I thought I’d never write: One of the stars of the new iOS is the Notes app. I’d written the Notes app off entirely years ago. (Remember Marker Felt?) The new version is really impressive.

    Love the new Notes app, all I use these days.

  • Thoughts on Annual iPhone Upgrades

    Shawn Blanc:

    From where I’m sitting, if you like to upgrade every year, if you’re not ultra-thrifty, if you don’t care about keeping your old hardware, and if you like to pay for convenience, then Apple’s Upgrade program actually sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

    Basically why I will be doing Apple’s upgrade program.

  • Adamant

    I’ve been testing Adamant and you notice the speed gain from running a content blocker right away — it’s awesome. But more amazing is how fast you get spoiled by a content blocker.

    I can’t wait for Adamant to come out so I can put it on every device in my family.

  • Initial Thoughts on iPad Pro

    Fraser Speirs:

    More than almost any other device, the iPad becomes the software it runs. The watch is always a watch. The phone is always pocket-sized (sort of). The iPad uniquely morphs between being a sheet music stand, an artist's easel, a book, a game, a cinema screen, a cash register, a typewriter, a notepad, a map, a project plan and a video editing suite all with a quick launch of an app. That's what makes it a special device. It's not just a “tablet computer”.

  • Apple Pencil vs. Wacom Cintiq

    Linda Dong:

    So my advice to anyone trying to decide between buying Apple Setup vs. Cintiq is run far far away from the Cintiq. Especially if you're a student.

  • Finally

    Yeah, that's right, iOS is getting the long anticipated middle finger emoji. Finally

  • Hands-on with the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard

    I suspect I'll love typing on this keyboard.