Most ad blockers block everything. You download the app, tell Safari to use it, and then no longer need to worry about sites serving bandwidth-burning scripts that leech your personal information.
But for many people, the blanket approach of nuking everything is too much. You may instead prefer to block some bad actors, but let most sites serve ads — the ads pay the writers who write for the sites, after all. That’s where the bluntly named Punish Website app comes in. The new app comes configured to block nothing, letting you add the sites you hate to your own personal blacklist.
Punish Website ad blocker — your own personal blacklist
Punish Website comes from Salavat Khanov, the developer behind the iOS and Mac content-blocking app 1Blocker. The Punish Website app actually uses the same ad-blocking engine as 1Blocker, but is set to off by default. If you come across a site that really clutters things up with ads, or that serves so many tracking scripts that pages take like 20 seconds to finish loading, you can add that site to your personal blacklist using Punish Website’s Safari share extension.
Photo: Salavat Khanov
The idea is that you can continue to support the sites you like by allowing them to serve ads, but you retain the power to block the worst offenders. It actually sounds like a great way to use Safari’s content-blocking abilities without cutting off the sites you love. And because Punish Website uses 1Blocker’s tech to do its job, the blocking itself is powerful and effective.
If you already use 1Blocker, Punish Website is redundant. But that doesn’t mean you cannot tweak 1Blocker to make it a little less strict.
You can, for instance, allow ads while blocking trackers, adult sites, Facebook widgets, comments and more. That seems to me like the best of both worlds — you keep your browsing a little more private, while the sites you enjoy can keep making money.
Price: $2.99
Download: Punish Website from the App Store (iOS)
