Wipr Review 2025: Lightweight but Powerful Ad Blocking

With Wipr, you can pay a low, one-time fee for some powerful ad blocking for your macOS and iOS devices. Our testing shows its effective against banner ads, interstitial ads, YouTube video ads, and more. 

There's no ads blocked counter, which could be a frustrating user experience. But this choice was made to protect users' browsing history, so it's a great choice if you're looking for privacy from your blocker. 

Is Wipr worth using? We'll detail our thoughts on this Apple-focused ad blocker in this review. 

Wipr overview

Ads blocked on Forbes	N/A
Adblock Tester score	100/100
Cover Your Tracks score	1.5/3
Can You Block It score	3/3
Does it block YouTube ads?	Yes
Whitelisting available	Yes
Blacklisting available	No
Compatibility	macOS, iOS, Safari
Paid version	$4.99 one-time fee plus optional in-app tipping
Learn more	Get Wipr

We last tested Wipr on July 3, 2025.

Our experience

Wipr is a pretty low-key, easy-to-use app that improves your online browsing experience. We tested it on a Macbook Pro running macOS Sequoia and found it almost easy to set up. Once the app was downloaded, we just needed to go into our Safari preferences and check off all the Wipr boxes.

The most we needed to do was turn Wipr off and on for testing purposes. Other than the ability to manually refresh Wipr, we didn’t find any other settings or functionality (which isn’t needed as the app automatically refreshes).

Overall, Wipr worked well, but there are some special things to note about the app. It isn’t going to give you a breakdown of the ads it blocked, simply because the developer doesn’t believe in prying into your browsing history.

To inform you of what is being blocked, Wipr would have to look at the sites you’re accessing. Instead, Wipr takes the stance that it blocks content that looks like ads, while also respecting your privacy.

Since there’s very little setup to do, you can turn Wipr on and then forget about it. The app refreshes itself as well as updates when necessary. 

Plus, you can stack Wipr with another ad blocker for increased protection, consider it's not the best at blocking trackers according to our tests. We’ll definitely be using this ourselves from now on.

Wipr paid plan

There’s only one price for Wipr: a $4.99. This means you won’t pay annual or monthly fees. 

There are no upgrade options to purchase but you can tip the developer in the app. Tipping helps her continue to create more useful apps.

Considering that the starting cost of YouTube Premium is $11.67/mo (billed annually), this is an extremely inexpensive way to rid yourself of YouTube ads. With that low price you'll only need to pay once, you can't go wrong with paying for Wipr. 

	Wipr
Price	$4.99
Ad blocker
Tracker blocker
Wipr Extra (YouTube ad blocker)	Yes — In Safari only
Whitelisting
Blacklisting
Email spam filter
Social media filter	Yes — In Safari only
Details	View plan

Wipr features

There really aren’t very many features but that’s ok: Wipr was designed that way. You do have the ability to whitelist as well as the option to turn on Wipr Extra in your Safari settings.

Wipr Extra

Wipr Extra is touted as an extra strength ad blocker that needs separate permissions to tackle the really tough ads, like the ones you see on YouTube. With Wipr 2.0, Wipr Extra now has over 100 times more extra rules to tackle ads, cookie notifications, and sites detecting Wipr. 

Since Apple doesn’t allow apps permission to alter other apps, you won’t have success blocking ads inside the YouTube app. If you stick to watching YouTube in your Safari browser, however, you’ll enjoy an ad-free experience.

Whitelisting

Whitelisting is easy and done the same way you would with any Safari extension:

On iOS 17 and above: 

1. Tap the aA button in Safari’s address bar.
2. Select Website Settings.
3. Check the box next to Enable Content Blockers.
4. Then, go to Safari < Preferences < Websites < Content Blockers, and make sure "When visiting other websites" is set to on.

On macOS:

1. Select Safari from the menu bar.
2. Click Settings for [Site You Wish to to Whitelist].
   

   

3. Remove the checkmark next to Enable Content Blockers. 

And that’s it! You can reverse this by following the same directions and clicking Use Content Blockers if you’d like to reactivate Wipr on that site. Just note that this feature isn’t available on older versions of iOS.

Wipr's test results

We use threesites to test the efficacy of ad blockers, AdBlock Tester, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) Cover Your Tracks, and Can You Block It.

AdBlock Tester lists a variety of analytical and advertising tools similar to what you’d encounter on most websites, to see if the ad blocker in question is blocking them.

Cover Your Tracks checks three things: tracking ads, invisible trackers, and fingerprinting. Tracking ads and invisible trackers are codes embedded in websites that track your activities. Fingerprinting is how unique you appear on the internet. The more unique you are, the easier it is to identify and track you.

Finally, Can You Block It tests blockers against pervasive ads such as interstitial ads, ad blocker detection warnings, and banner ads. 

Wipr scores

Test	AdBlock Tester	Cover Your Tracks	Can You Block It?
Wipr score	100/100	1.5/3	3/3

Wipr was a formidable opponent against ads. It received a perfect score with both AdBlock Tester and Can You Block It.

With Cover Your Tracks, it was less successful. There was only partial protection with tracking ads and invisible trackers. Wipr did have a nearly unique fingerprint, rather than a unique fingerprint, so it received a partial pass on this one as well. 

YouTube ad test

Yes, Wipr blocks YouTube ads so long as you watch from your browser. YouTube ads are a little extreme lately, likely because it wants you to purchase a subscription to eliminate them, and viewing a video can get annoying quickly. 

Enter Wipr. Ads on YouTube require more than the regular content blockers, so Wipr included the Wipr Extra feature.

During setup, the Wipr app tells you what settings you need to change to enable all of Wipr, including where you can find Wipr Extra. You don’t have to enable Wipr Extra to get Wipr’s ad-blocking capabilities, but you will need it to block YouTube ads and other stronger ads.

We opened a YouTube video on about Bucc-ee's on a private window, which didn't have Wipr enabled. We had at least one pre-roll ad and two ads on the righthand side of the video. 

Then, we went back to our regular Safari tab. Wipr removed the banner ads and blocked the video ads, so we could watch videos uninterrupted. 

Bypassing paywalls tests

We've all clicked on an article we wanted to read only to be blocked by a paywall. It can be frustrating, to say the least, so we test all of our ad blockers to see if they can bring down those paywalls.

But considering how simplistic Wipr is, we weren't surprised to find that paywalls remained when we opened articles from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the Washington Post. We'll keep testing until we find an ad blocker that bypasses those paywalls. 

What browsers and software is it compatible with?

Wipr is built exclusively for iOS and macOS devices and you can find it in Apple’s App Store and the Mac App Store.

If you do an internet search for Wipr for Android, there are a few websites that come up. They aren’t verified download sites and we recommend not downloading from them. If you’re going to download a mobile app, it’s best to do it from the official app store for your device. 

Wipr is available for the following:

• iPhone, iPad, or iPod running iOS 17.0 or later
• MacBook running macOS 14.0 or later
• Safari

How to use Wipr

Wipr is pretty bare bones and it's only available for Apple products. However, Wipr walks you through the set up process with step-by-step instructions. 

Here's how to get started with Wipr:

1. Purchase and download the Wipr app.
2. Open Safari.
3. Click Preferences from the Safari menu.
4. Select Extensions.
5. Check of Wipr Part 1, 2, and 3 to enable them.
6. To enable Wipr Extra, click Edit Websites. 
7. Set For Other Websites: to Allow.

Top alternatives

If you’re an Android user or want a little more customization with your ad blocker, there are several alternatives you can use that have more features than Wipr.

VPNs with built-in ad blockers give you more security by allowing you to browse anonymously while ad blockers tend to only block content. And make sure you’re still protecting yourself from malware, viruses, and ransomware with an antivirus product.

FAQs

Bottom line: Is Wipr good?

Yes, Wipr is a good, light product. While it doesn’t offer a lot of features, that means it won’t be logging your data or weighing your device down. It also works with other ad blockers, so you have the ability to double up — one of the best ways to block ads.

Since Wipr is limited to iOS and macOS devices as well as the Safari browser, you may be wondering what other options are available for non-Apple users. Our Wipr alternatives all have extensive compatiability with apps for your desktop, phone, and browser extensions as well as additional features to further protect from trackers, malicious sites, and more.

You can also learn how Wipr compares directly to these ad blockers:

• Wipr vs. AdGuard
• Wipr vs. Total Adblock
• Wipr vs. 1Blocker
• Wipr vs. uBlock Origin
• Wipr vs. Adblock Plus

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