1Blocker 4.0: Now with In-App Tracker Blocking
Today we are releasing 1Blocker 4.0, a major update that introduces in-app tracker blocking and the new privacy protection overview tab.
In-app tracker blocking
Firewall is a new feature that allows you to protect your privacy not only in Safari but in all apps on your iOS device. It can automatically block more than 9,200 in-app trackers, including spy pixels in emails, behavior measurement trackers, and other analytics services.
What makes our approach different is that 1Blocker performs all the blocking on your device only and doesn’t collect any of your data. Your internet traffic is not routed through any servers. That makes our solution super fast, and you won’t notice any slowdowns.
Firewall runs in a network extension on iOS and acts as a local proxy or gateway between you and the internet. When it sees a request is being sent to a block-listed host, the extension just drops the connection. Other requests stay untouched and work just like before.
Firewall & Apple’s App Tracking Transparency
Yesterday Apple released iOS 14.5 with App Tracking Transparency. Under ATT, apps will have to ask for permission to “track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites.” The feature is aimed to give users a choice to be tracked or not. If you ask an app not to track you, the app will no longer be able to access your device’s Advertising Identifier.
We think it’s a great initiative from Apple. 👏
However, App Tracking Transparency is policy-enforced, meaning apps still have access to the internet — even when a user explicitly asks the app to not track them.
In other words, Apple doesn’t block any requests apps make to the internet. Apple just requires developers not to track when the user doesn’t give their permission.
It may be challenging for Apple to actually enforce the ATT policy if an app uses other identifiers like hashed email addresses or a digital fingerprint.
A social network, for example, can still track you, as long as they don’t share and link their data with data from other companies. That’s because first-party data collection is not considered as tracking under ATT. Apple considers it as tracking when data collected by one company, is linked with data from third-party companies. The social network, in this case, doesn’t even have to show you the App Tracking Transparency permission dialog.
This leads to companies creating their own tracking systems, because it prevents Apple from stopping them from tracking users. Firewall can protect you against these in-house tracking systems.
Firewall is still in beta. If you experience issues with other apps when Firewall is active, please let us know. We’re always listening to your feedback and constantly improving 1Blocker. 💙
Your Protection at a Glance
The Overview tab consists of cards with different privacy protection recommendations. It offers an easy way of managing your protection against trackers and obtrusive ads on websites.
Currently, there are only three cards. We plan to add a few more cards with some other tips in the future.
Try Firewall for Free
If you have already purchased Premium, Firewall is free for you! 🎉
Our Premium comes with a two-week free trial, so you can try and see if you like it. After the trial, you can buy Premium for $14.99 per year or $2.99 per month. Lifetime purchase is also available. Premium is a Universal Purchase (iOS + Mac) and can be shared with your family.
By the way, the free version of the app also lets you activate one Safari filter (e.g. Block Ads or Block Trackers) and Allow List. To activate multiple filters and enable Firewall, you’ll need to buy Premium.
