Filtr brings device-level ad blocking to iPhones, Macs

Filtr blocks – A developer behind the Safari ad blocker Wipr says Filtr is the first app to use Apple’s URL filters to block ads at the device level across iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps—moving beyond browser-only tracking defenses. Filtr is available as an add-on to Wipr with a

The difference was immediate. and it was the kind you only notice after you’ve lived with the problem for years. After installing Filtr on an iPhone. the apps that usually load with a “flood of ads” instead came up clean—missing ads replaced by greyed placeholder spaces where advertisements would have appeared.

Ad blockers have long been an answer for privacy and security, and they can stop ads from loading in browsers. But ad tracking inside apps is a different battlefield. and even heavy desktop users with tools like Pi-hole often find their devices still exposed when they’re not on home Wi‑Fi—or when they’re deep inside apps that serve ads themselves.

Filtr is built to close that gap. It’s a new privacy tool designed to block ads not just in Safari. but across Apple devices at the network level. The feature relies on new capabilities in iOS 26 and macOS 26. and it’s meant to work across the iPhone. iPad. and Mac—so the protection isn’t confined to a browser window.

The tool is created and maintained by Kaylee Serena Calderolla, the developer behind Wipr, a popular Safari browser ad blocker. Wipr prevents ads from ever appearing in Safari. so ads won’t load and their tracking code—used by advertisers to follow users around the web and monitor which websites they visit—won’t run.

Filtr builds on that. It’s an additional paid-for feature bundled into Wipr that goes further by blocking ads in iPhone. iPad. and Mac apps. Rather than trying to handle tracking only from within the browser. Filtr uses a feature embedded in Apple’s latest software called URL filters. That URL filters capability lets developers block access to certain websites or domains at the network level instead of just in the browser.

Calderolla told MISRYOUM that Filtr is the first app so far to utilize Apple’s URL filters feature. though she also described it as a “nightmare” to get working. In a May blog post. she said Apple’s documentation on URL filters was sparse. forcing her to do much of the work to understand how to implement and use the feature.

Under the hood, Filtr relies on an advertising blocklist Calderolla maintains. Filtr checks a “pre-filter” blocklist stored on the user’s device and kept constantly up-to-date via automatic updates in the Wipr app. The pre-filter list decides whether a website is not on the block list and. most of the time. the site loads as normal. But if the pre-filter list suggests a website might belong on the block list. Filtr quickly confirms against Calderolla’s servers.

The key privacy promise is where those confirmations go. Calderolla said the requests are routed through Apple’s servers as a proxy, so app developers do not know who is querying their blocklists.

For users, that translates into something simple: set it up once and generally stop thinking about it. “For a security or privacy product. that’s high praise. ” Calderolla said. and the experience reflected in the first launch of apps is hard to miss—ads don’t appear. and their tracking machinery doesn’t get a chance to run.

There are caveats, because ad blocking is never total. Filtr does not always block ads served directly from the websites you visit. That means users may still see ads inside apps including the Facebook. Google. and Reddit apps. along with any other app that serves ads from its own domain—because blocking those could break apps altogether. Calderolla said Filtr can sometimes block those ads anyway. because the feature depends on filtering specific web addresses rather than blocking an entire domain.

A separate test and review by Lifehacker found that using mobile websites instead of apps will still allow Wipr to block the ads.

Wipr itself is a universal app that costs $5 in the Apple App Store and works across all of an iPhone, iPad, and Mac user’s devices. Filtr is available as an additional $5 each year, or $25 for a one-time lifetime payment, via in-app purchase.

For people who are tired of “safe” privacy in a browser while the rest of their phone remains wide open, Filtr’s pitch lands with a familiar kind of relief: it isn’t just cleaning up a tab—it’s trying to stop the ad tracking that happens where apps live.

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