AdGuard 1.3 for Safari: keeping pace after a strong start

AdGuard for Safari proved to be a popular ad blocking solution soon after its initial release. It took us a bit more than a month to update it from v1.1 to v1.2, and almost half a year to reach v1.3. As you know, if we do something for so long, it's probably going to be worth it. This time is not an exception, hopefully: on top of multiple smallish but important changes and fixes, we have two big ones. Let's have a look at them.

Standalone builds: Beta & Release

AdGuard for Safari has quickly become a rightful member of AdGuard product family. And what is a better initiation rite for an app than getting its own beta channel? That's right, you can now get an early access to all new AdGuard for Safari features (and new bugs, too!). How do you do it?

You go to GitHub, find the latest beta version there and download the beta archive that will be available among the "Assets" at the bottom. Notice that there's always another archive: a release standalone build. It is identical to the version you would get from the App Store but is distributed via GitHub.

Warning! Installing either of the standalone builds on top of the App Store version will lose you all current settings, so make sure to save all your custom rules beforehand.

Advanced blocking rules

As you probably know, Apple is always eager to restrict something when it comes to ad blockers. Safari ad blocking extensions are one of the primary targets: thanks to Apple limitations it is non-trivial for them to support some of the more advanced filtering syntax, specifically JavaScript rules, CSS and ExtendedCSS rules. And these rules are super important: they can hide the elements or even convert the overall style of pages. Sometimes it's the only way to hide ads.

In fact, up until now, no Safari ad blocker could do that. It only makes us even more proud to say that AdGuard for Safari now supports these types of rules, and will provide you with an even higher ad blocking quality than before.

Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that we managed to overcome every single hurdle posed before us by Safari restrictions. Even with all the cunning and tricks in the world, the capabilities of apps from App Store don't come close to standalone ad blockers like AdGuard for Mac.

For the full changelog go to GitHub. As you'll see, there are other curious additions, like "Trusted" checkbox for custom filters. If you have any questions regarding the new version, let us know in the comments. Looking forward to hearing your feedback!