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Blocking Safari Ads on iPad?

Is there any way to block the annoying, never-ending, screw up my browsing experience, ads when using Safari on the iPad. Every time I go to a sight with pop up ads the page I want disappears and a **** ad shows up or some other stupid ad and when I go back to the original page we jump off again to the **** ad over and over. I can never get to places like Amazon or eBay or any decent website because of the ridiculous ads. On my MacBook I can shut off Javascript in Safari and that will disable the pop ups but where are the settings for the Safari browser on the iPad?

And if Apple doesn't provide a way to block them then WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR?

I can't find an "app to block Safari Ads" anywhere! WHY NOT???

So annoying - ruins my browser experience on the iPad.

Mac Pro 3.2Ghz, MacBook Pro 2.53Ghz w/8G Ram, Mac OS X (10.6.6), iPhone 4G, iPad 64G 3GS

Posted on Feb 7, 2011 10:31 AM

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39 replies

Feb 7, 2011 12:55 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks Carolyn. I went into Settings/Safari and my Block Pop-ups was on and so was Javascript. I disabled Javascript. Not the best solution because there are times when I need Javascript (if I want to see a picture that is enlarged using Javascript)or if I want to leave a comment (which again, relies on Javascript). What we iPad users need is a serious. What advertisers are doing now is creating the popups in Javascript in an attempt to get around pop-up blockers. When you come across this on the iPad your main screen disappears and a new screen appears with the full page ad. Thus, if I want to leave a comment I hit the comment button and the page fades away and is replaced with an ad page. I have to jump back to the grid and get my comment page back. The minute I try posting in the comment box the page disappears and up pops the Javascript ad page. It just repeats over and over. We don't have this problem on a regular Mac computer using Safari although you do with Firefox (and there again, you have to disable Javascript).

So something has to be done to correct this problem. Advertisers have figured out a way to 'disable' pop-up ads. (Apple - please fix or a third party plug-in would be welcome!)

Feb 7, 2011 10:14 PM in response to Michael Morgan1

I'm not talking about popup window adds, I'm talking about the javascript boxes that pop a div over the whole site until you click close.

I am also talking about the banner ads that are now animated gifs or still images all over the place, these are killing my bandwidth, and on my pc I can block them because they are in flash, were as on my ipad I can not because they are just images.

Sep 13, 2011 3:32 AM in response to Lisa Garland

What we really need is a feature like AdBlockPlus for the Firefox browser (or lately a re-implementation for Safari on Mac OS X/Windows). When I started browsing with my iPad I had forgotten just how intrusive ads are in the web-surfing experience; they're horrid. AdBlockPlus and its imitators also block user-tracking. I wish an ad-block/anti-tracking option exist for iPad Safari too.

Mar 17, 2012 5:48 PM in response to Glimfeather

I am a new iPad user--like since yesterday at 8:45--and experienced Mac user. The privacy/tracking situation in iOS is the biggest eye opening surprise so far. Ghostery is available for iOS but it is a stand alone app and it is buggy. With no apparent extension API's it looks like Safari users are subject to Apple's decisions in this regard. I don't mind ads on most sites but I think Apple should allow users to defend theemselves from the various tracking bugs and JavaScript tricks that are now rampant.

Mar 17, 2012 7:31 PM in response to Gary K.

Gary K. wrote:


I only know of one situation.

You know of only one and the "privacy issue" is that big of a concern?


I was referring to the utter lack of control over cookies and tracking bugs and thought that was apparent in my post???

Not really apparent.

You can turn on/off cookies & Javascript in Settings > Safari. (which I mentioned in the 3rd post in this topic over a year ago).

Go to Settings > Safari > Advanced and you can view/delete data from websites.

Can't say I have heard of any tracking bug problems in iOS Safari.

Blocking Safari Ads on iPad?

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