Filter is a new privacy tool that blocks ads in almost every iPhone and Mac app

Using an ad blocker is good for your security and privacy, and even the FBI recommends it to protect against online harm. But as great as ad blockers are for cleaning up your browsing experience, these tools often don’t do much to prevent prevalent in-app ad tracking.

Now, thanks to a new feature in iOS 26 and macOS 26, a developer has built the first device-level ad blocker that works across all of Apple’s major products — iPhone, iPad, and Mac — and isn’t just limited to the browser.

Filtr is a new tool created and maintained by Kaylee Serena Calderolla, the developer behind the popular Safari ad blocker Wipr. Wipr blocks ads from appearing in Safari, which means ads won’t load, nor will the tracking code that advertisers use to follow you across the web and snoop on the websites you visit. The result is a cleaner browsing experience, free of advertisers monitoring your online activity.

Filtr is a paid add-on built into Wipr that goes beyond just ad blocking in the browser by blocking ads in the iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps. Filtr does this by using a new feature built into Apple’s latest software called URL filters, which allow developers to block access to specific websites or domains at the network level, not just in the browser.

I use ad blockers across different devices all the time (even if sites like this ask you to turn them off). I’ve used Wipr – with full disclosure – as my main ad blocker on my Apple devices for years as a paid customer. I also use ad blockers on other browsers on my desktop computers and take advantage of the Pi-hole ad blocker, which is a small server on my network at home that blocks ads from reaching any of my devices connected to my home Wi-Fi network.

But this still leaves my devices largely open to ads when I’m not connected to my home network, as well as various apps I use that are full of ads — including web browsers other than Safari.

As you can imagine, I was eager to try Filter. Filtr has gained particular appeal because, as Caldirola states in its privacy policy, its apps “do not collect personal data.” Its apps also don’t do that needs To access any personal business information, nor Apple’s URL filtering feature.

For me, it was a no-brainer – it’s all upside, there’s no trade-off. I paid for the $5 annual subscription, added the URL filter to my iPhone, and that was it. The relief was immediate. Every app I opened loaded without the usual influx of ads. Some ad slides showed gray placeholders where ads were to load.

Caldirola told me this week that Filtr is the first app so far to use URL filters; However, that may be partly because it was a “nightmare” to operate, some of which I described in a blog post back in May. Caldirola said Apple’s documentation on the URL feature was sparse, requiring it to do a lot of work to understand how to implement and use the feature.

The URL filter feature is based on the ad blocking list maintained by Calderolla. Caldirola explained that Filtr uses the “pre-filter” block list stored on the user’s device and constantly updated through automatic updates in the Wipr app. The pre-filter list determines whether a website is not on the block list, and most of the time, the website loads as normal. But if the pre-filtering list finds that a website may be on the block list, it will quickly be confirmed against the list on Calderolla’s servers. These requests are routed through Apple’s servers as a proxy so app developers don’t know who is inquiring about their blocklists, Caldirola said.

This means you can set up the filter once and never have to think about it again. (For a security or privacy product, this is commendable.)

There are some caveats, but they are far from deal-breakers. No ad blocker is perfect, but reducing exposure to ad networks as much as possible is a big win for your privacy. Filter does not always block ads shown directly from websites you visit. This means you may still see ads in the Facebook, Google, and Reddit apps, as well as any other app that shows ads from its own domain, as blocking them could break the apps entirely. However, Caldirola said Filtr can sometimes block these ads because the feature relies on filtering specific web addresses, rather than the entire domain. (Lifehacker also tested and reviewed Filtr and found that using its mobile websites instead of its apps will still allow Wipr to block ads.)

Wipr is a universal app that costs $5 in the Apple App Store and works on all your Apple devices. Filter costs an additional $5 per year, or $25 for a one-time, lifetime payment, via in-app purchase.