iOS 9 Lets Developers Build Ad Blocking Software for Safari

iOS 9 could let developers build an ad blocker for Safari, according to pre-release Safari 9 documentation. New 'content blocking' Safari extension would allow developers to create a JSON file that would be passed to Safari on iOS that would block certain images, scripts, cookies, and more.

The new Safari release brings Content Blocking Safari Extensions to iOS. Content Blocking gives your extensions a fast and efficient way to block cookies, images, resources, pop-ups, and other content.

The content blocking extensions would only apply to browsers, so developers would not be able to block ads in existing apps. Apple would still have to approve any content blocking extensions like Ad Block before developers could distribute such programs on iOS, so it remains unknown if the company what the guidelines are for such extensions. Ad blocking software has been around for years on all desktop browser, including Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. in 2013, Google removed all ad-blockers from the Play Store to precent ad revenue from slipping away.


It remains unclear what motivated Apple to create an API for developers to build ad-blocking extensions. Perhaps it is hoping to sell more iAds through its recently launched News app, or perhaps it's trying to hurt Google's iOS ad revenue -- which makes up a large percentage of the company's overall mobile ad revenue.

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