Filtr is a new privacy tool that blocks ads for almost all iPhone and Mac apps

Using an ad blocker is good for your security, privacy, and even the FBI recommends it to protect against online harm. But since ad blockers are great at cleaning up your browsing experience, these tools often do little to prevent full tracking from in-app ads.

Now, thanks to a new feature in iOS 26 and macOS 26, one developer has built the first device-level ad blocker that works on all of Apple’s main products — iPhones, iPads, and Macs — and isn’t limited to just the browser.

Filtr is a new tool created and maintained by Kaylee Serena Calderola, the developer behind the popular Safari browser ad blocker Wipr. Wipr prevents ads from popping up in Safari, which means ads won’t load, or their tracking code that advertisers use to track you around the web and check which websites you visit. The result is a clean browsing experience, free for advertisers viewing your work online.

Filtr is a paid add-on feature integrated into Wipr that goes one step beyond blocking ads in the browser by blocking ads on iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps. Filtr does this by using a new feature embedded in Apple’s latest software called URL filters, which allow developers to block access to certain websites or domains at the network level, rather than just at the browser.

I use ad blockers on all different devices all the time (even if websites like this one ask you to turn them off). I have used Wipr as my primary firewall for my Apple devices for many years as a paying customer. I also use ad blockers in other browsers on my desktop computers and I use the Pi-hole ad blocker, a small server that sits on my network at home and blocks ads from accessing any of my devices connected to my home Wi-Fi.

But that still leaves my devices more open to ads when I’m not on my home network, and the various apps I use full of ads – including non-Safari web browsers.

As you can imagine, I was eager to give Filtr a spin. Filtr has been heavily advertised because, as Calderola states in its privacy policy, its apps “do not collect personal data.” His apps don’t either the need to access any personal information to work, and there is no Apple URL filter feature.

For me, it was a no-brainer – all the opposite, and no trade-offs. I paid a $5 annual subscription, added a URL filter to my iPhone, and that was it. The relief was immediate. Every app I opened loaded without its usual flood of ads. Some ad spaces showed gray placeholder spaces where ads would be loaded.

Calderola told me this week that Filtr is the first app to date to use a URL filters feature; however, that may be in part because it was a “nightmare” to make it work, he explained in a May blog post. Calderola said that Apple’s documentation on the URL feature was sparse, requiring him to do a lot of work to understand how to use the feature and how to use it.

The URL filter feature depends on the advertising list maintained by Calderola. Calderola explained that Filtr consults a “pre-filter” list that is stored on the user’s device and is kept up-to-date with automatic updates in the Wipr app. The previous filter list determines whether the website is on the block list and, most of the time, the website loads normally. But if the previous filter list detects that a website may be on the block list, it will immediately verify against the list on Calderola’s servers. Calderola said these requests are routed through Apple’s servers as a proxy so app developers don’t know who is querying their blocklists.

This means you can set Filtr once and often never think about it again. (For a security or privacy product, that’s highly recommended.)

There are some caveats, but far from dealbreakers. No ad blocker is perfect, period, but reducing your exposure to ad networks as much as possible is a huge win for your privacy. Filtr also does not block ads served from same network such as the website you visit. That means you’ll still see ads on Facebook, Google, and Reddit apps, as well as any other app that serves ads from its own domain, since blocking these will block the domain entirely, making it very broken. (Lifehacker also tested and reviewed Filtr and found that using their mobile websites instead of their apps will still allow Wipr to block ads.)

Wipr is a regular app that costs $5 on the Apple App Store and works on all your Apple devices. Filtr costs an additional $5 each year, or $25 for a one-time lifetime fee, through in-app purchases.