I just upgraded to Safari 12.0. I’ve been looking forward to it because Apple has greatly expanded the anti-tracking measures in the new Safari. Apparently the extension framework has changed because one of my extensions was deleted and the other was turned off. The one that was turned off was Ghostery on the grounds that it would slow down browsing. Perhaps I wouldn’t need it anyway with Safari’s new features.
Once the update was completed, I went back to my browsing—visiting a typical tech site—and nearly had a heart attack. Ads started popping up and the screen was redrawn several times to adjust for them. Although the content appeared pretty much immediately, it was hard to read because it kept jumping around. This went on for some time. In exasperation, I turned Ghostery back on—it’s easy to do from the Extension Preferences Pane—and reloaded the page. Boom! It loaded just as it always had with no delay and no jumping around. As far as I can tell, turning Ghostery off actually makes loading slower not faster.
In any event, Ghostery is coming out with Ghostery Lite that will work with the new browser but it’s not ready yet. If you’re using Ghostery with Safari, I recommend turning Ghostery back on. Your life will be much better and as far as I can see, it doesn’t appear to effect the speed, at least compared to the old Safari.
In a way, the episode was a revelation to me. I’ve written several times that I don’t mind the ads—I consider them a fair cost for the content that the advertiser is paying for—but it turns out that I do mind them. A lot. In fairness to the content providers, I’d put up with them were it not for the tracking but they really do make for a considerably less pleasant browsing experience. All those ads are something I don’t miss at all. Happily, the malevolent adtech people will never give up trying to track us so I can continue to use Ghostery to filter their ads without the slightest twinge of conscience.