Uninstalling apps (part 2)

Maybe this experiment won’t last, but this week, I decided to remove Wipr from my Mac and my iPhone. I wanted to see what my web browsing experience would be like without it. Wipr is arguably the best content blocker for Safari — I’ve been using it for years — and one of the main reasons I keep using Safari, despite everything else.

This is what I wrote about Wipr back in March 2023:

I wish I didn’t have to use it, but the fact is that it might be the single app […] that I can’t function without. As far as content blockers go, Wipr has proven to be the best one for me, hands down. The must-have app of the must-have list.

The reason I ended up uninstalling this extension is that I recently realised that I may not need it as much as I thought I did, at least not anymore.

You see, in September, I gave another shot at DNS resolvers like NextDNS. These services allow for blocking trackers and surveillance ads before they even reach your computer. My previous attempts with NextDNS were all unsuccessful, as I encountered too many connection errors for my taste, never knowing if these came from the DNS itself, my DNS settings, my browser, my internet connection, or elsewhere.

This time, maybe I paid more attention to the settings, or maybe they worked on these little issues, but I ended up pretty satisfied with it. I eventually tried other options, like Quad9 and Mullvad DNS. Today, I’m using Mullvad DNS, and so far it’s been great. I like that I don’t need to manage a full dashboard of options like the one in NextDNS, and so far it’s been much more reliable than dns0.eu, which I also tried in the past.

With this DNS resolver, my web browsing experience has improved considerably, if I’m being honest. Even with content blockers turned off, I barely see any ads, have never experienced slow internet speeds, and Safari has never felt so snappy and memory-efficient on my Core i5-powered MacBook Air.

At some point, I realised that Wipr was only there to remove empty advert blocks from webpages, which was certainly appreciated (less empty space), but I started to feel like I was maybe underusing this great extension, like having a great player sitting on the bench.

Then I started using StopTheMadness Pro again. Maybe I should write another post about why I keep coming back to this extension, but, in a nutshell, it is a bit overwhelming to manage. I somehow always end up uninstalling it before I download it again.¹ With Mullvad DNS blocking ads and trackers, and StopTheMadness blocking some banners and skipping ads on YouTube, I started to feel bad for Wipr.

After a few days of this experiment, the only complaint I have is seeing all the previously hidden cookie banners. They are incredibly annoying, but I tend to see them only once per website. Other than that, barely any ads, great performance: call me impressed.

Now, for situations where something remains in the way, I usually try something with Reader mode or the Hide page elements feature, either with Safari or StopTheMadness. As a last resort, when a website is getting on my nerves, I call StopTheScript to the rescue.² Overall, it’s a pretty satisfying set-up.

Speaking of set-up, if I don’t count “apps” installed and used via the terminal, I now only have four apps installed on my Mac, and two of them are Safari extensions.³ These are BBEdit, NetNewsWire, StopTheScript, and StopTheMadness Pro.

If you are a regular reader of my “uses” and “now” pages, you may have noticed that Wipr still appears on it, along with other apps that I didn’t mention here. This is because I kept it on my work computer, with which I don’t want to use Mullvad DNS.

You may also have noticed that I recently removed GoodLinks. Indeed, I really like this app, but I “replaced” it with an Apple Shortcut on my phone and an AppleScript on my Mac, triggered using BBEdit.

What the Apple Shortcut does, when accessed from the share menu on Safari, is append the title and URL of the current page (as a Markdown link) to a text file living on iCloud Drive, which is always open on my Mac. Before validating the action, the shortcut asks for an optional comment that will appear next to the link in the file, which I use mostly as a way to remember how I discovered a page (usually immortalised in the “via” comments on my Blend of links posts).

On the Mac, what I do is open BBEdit, select the “saved links” file, and run an AppleScript through a keyboard shortcut that does pretty much the same thing: appending the title and URL to the bottom of that file in Markdown format. Almost as simple as adding a page to GoodLinks, without the need for another app. To open these saved links, I can simply Command-click on them in BBEdit.

To me, uninstalling apps is just as fun as trying out new ones. It forces me to think about what features I really need and how I could use the already installed apps in the best possible way. As I previously explained:

Once or twice a year, I get this irresistible urge to uninstall apps from my devices. Apps that I don’t use very often, apps that can be replaced by websites easily, apps that I don’t need all the time, and so on.

If things go the way they usually do, this uninstalling phase will be followed by an intense “trying out new apps” or “getting some of them back” phase, so don’t be surprised if, in a few weeks, you see me using Wipr again on all my devices.