![]() In the screenshots below, you can see how I hid the banner art and featured stories on MacStories and the rules Roadblock created to accomplish that. When you are done selecting elements to block and hide, click the Safari extension again, select ‘Done,’ and the page will reload with your new custom rules activated. Roadblock does the hard work of creating the regular expressions and identifying the selectors of page elements for you automatically. Setting up a series of rules visually is as simple as clicking on webpage elements one at at a time. Blocking and hiding items visually is a feature that sets Roadblock apart from other content blockers I’ve tried because you can create complex rules without knowing anything about regular expressions or the structure of webpages. Roadblock’s Safari extension lets you block and whitelist sites you visit from a drop-down menu or block and hide items visually. If you know what you’re doing, Roadblock includes all the custom rule fields and options you need to create complex blocking rules, but there’s an easier way to set up rules. Each type of rule can be set up by domain and optionally include all subdomains. ‘Hide Elements’ lets you block webpage elements from loading by specifying their selectors. ‘Block Cookies’ prevents first and/or third party cookies from loading. ‘Block Loads’ can block nine different types of resources from loading. There are four categories of rules that can be created. ![]() The final section is dedicated to Custom Rules, which is one of Roadblock’s most powerful features. Personally, I wouldn’t turn the Web Resources rules on with any regularity, but they could come in handy if you are doing something like tethering your Mac to your iPhone and are trying to conserve expensive bandwidth. I won’t go into each item, but suffice it to say that if you enable all these rules, what you’ll get is a site that is lightweight, but ugly. The Web Resources section is subdivided into Block Images, Block Media, Block Scripts, Block Style Sheets, and Block SVG. This section also lets you hide the frames of the blocked social media items. Under the Social Media section, you can block things like social media widgets and share buttons from displaying. Hide Ads hides an advertisement’s frame, which tidies up webpages so there aren’t holes left by blocked ads, and hides text-based ads. Block Ads and and Block Tracking block advertisements and trackers from loading. Ads and Tracking is further divided into Block Ads, Hide Ads, and Block Tracking. The top level rule categories are Ads and Tracking, Social Media, Web Resources, and Custom Rules. Roadblock is organized into four groups of rules. After you set up Roadblock the way you want, you can close it and let its Safari extension take over because the two stay in sync. Each set of rules is turned off by default, but can be turned on by toggling the switches next to each collection of rules. Roadblock includes roughly 38,000 built-in content blocking rules that are divided into four top-level categories, each of which is further subdivided with a clear explanation of what each sub-category does. Despite a few limitations that I discuss below, these two features make Roadblock extremely powerful and an excellent choice if you are looking for a content blocker for your Mac. What makes Roadblock unique, is its focus on profiles, allow you to set up different sets of content blocking rules for different use cases, and its simplified approach to creating complex custom rules. Today, Obied Corner released Roadblock for Mac, which takes its iOS content blocker and adds some compelling new features. Last month I reviewed 1Blocker, a Safari content blocker that replicated its successful iOS app on the Mac. Content blockers arrived with a splash on iOS last Fall when iOS 9 was released, but have only recently begun showing up on the Mac App Store.
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