I was a longtime user of AdGuard but eventually grew tired of the extra maintenance and troubleshooting it required. Add to that the growing list of paywalled features and the inconsistent experience across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS.My next stop was Wipr 2. I had used the original in the past and decided to give the new version a try. I actually don’t have much negative to say about it; it just didn’t fully meet my needs. For someone looking for a simple, reasonably effective “set it and forget it” ad blocker, I’d recommend it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to eliminate many of the web nuisances I wanted gone.I then tried uBlock Origin Lite. Admittedly, if I hadn’t discovered wBlock, I probably would have stuck with it despite its occasional quirks. In particular, it seemed to periodically forget its settings.wBlock is similar to uBlock Origin Lite in many ways, but I find its UI and feature implementation far superior. It comes with an extensive set of filters out of the box, with even more available for those who want more aggressive blocking.In my testing, it was just as effective as AdGuard at blocking trackers, the best at blocking video ads, and had the best element-blocking tool (Zapper). Its filter sets are also extremely granular. In other words, it either matches or outperforms the others in virtually every area.And that’s without even mentioning the feature that ultimately sold me on it: userscripts. That’s a game changer for me. I won’t try to explain the feature here because the developers already do a good job of that, but for me, it was the missing piece I’d been looking for.Combine that with the superior design, and I plan to stick with wBlock as long as it continues to meet (and exceed) my expectations. And did I mention it’s free and open source?!My only complaint is that occasionally a custom filter or user script that I deleted keeps reappearing. I can’t tell if that’s a iCloud syncing issue or what but I have 1-2 that keeps respawning. It shows with a red “not downloaded” text.