Banish: New Safari Extension to Block ‘Open in App’ Dickpanels

You know how on your iPhone when you visit a website like, say, Reddit or LinkedIn or TikTok or Quora — or dozens of others — and the website presents a popover panel that covers the whole damn page telling you how much better it would be if you’d install their app instead of using their website? It doesn’t just annoy me, it makes me angry every damn time. There’s a reason the verb is visiting a website. If I wanted a long-term lease I’d go to the App Store on my own. Here I am, having already loaded their bloated, poorly-coded webpage, trying to give their site a slice of my attention, and they’re covering their own content — the content I came to their site to see — with a dickpanel* suggesting that I install their app. Why would I want to give their software a permanent home on my device when I have an example of how they write software in front of my face, and that example serves only to prove that they have zero respect for my time or attention — or for their own content? It boggles the mind. It’s like going to a restaurant and ordering a sandwich, but when your sandwich is ready, they show it to you momentarily but refuse to serve it until you fill out a form to join, or decline to join, their rewards club. Fucking-A right I’m going to decline. No real-world restaurant would do this because it’s sociopathic, but it’s standard practice for a certain class of thirsty-for-“engagement” websites.

Banish is a new $2 content blocker for Safari by Alex Zamoshchin that does one thing and does it well: it nukes dickpanels in Safari on iPhone and iPad. I’ve been using it for over a week and have already gotten far more than $2 in value from it.

* dickpanel n. : a modal panel or popover a website or app presents, deliberately obscuring its own content, to frustrate the user with a marketing message; e.g. asking the user to install the website’s app, subscribe to a newsletter, or disable privacy controls and accept tracking cookies. See dickbar.

★ Tuesday, 2 August 2022