MachOne™
Support

MachOne — Support

Get in touch: corbintucker@icloud.com

Getting Started

Open MachOne after installing.

Turn on all four MachOne extensions, and allow the one named “MachOne” on all websites:

Together they enforce about 180,000 rules, plus the Annoyances blocker’s own. When MachOne starts, and on iPhone and iPad whenever you switch back to it, it downloads fresh filter lists if they are more than 12 hours old. “Update Filter Lists” in the app does it at any time.

The Protection Benchmark

Tap or click “Run Benchmark” (“Run Again” after the first run). MachOne loads its current rules into a hidden test web view on your device and requests 38 known tracker, ad and cryptominer files — first with its rules off, then on — and shows what was blocked in each category. It also checks that a sample of its element-hiding rules really hide their elements. The test runs only when you start it. Every request its rules don’t block — including all of them in the rules-off pass — reaches the real server, which sees your IP address as with any web request. The test view saves no cookies, and the results stay on your device unless you share them.

Common Issues

Blocking seems off after I changed something in Safari settings? Tap or click “Reapply Filters” in the MachOne app to make Safari reload MachOne’s ad, tracker and cryptominer rules.

The app says “Blocker Off”? One of MachOne’s content blockers is switched off in Safari. Turn it back on in Safari’s extension settings (see Getting Started above).

The app says “Rules Not Loaded”? A MachOne content blocker is switched on, but Safari couldn’t load its rules. MachOne tries again on its own when you open it or switch back to it, waiting longer after each failed try — from 15 minutes up to 12 hours. “Reapply Filters” retries the Privacy and Miners blockers right away; Safari can take up to two minutes to answer. If it keeps happening, email me.

An orange line asks you to enable a MachOne extension? A MachOne content blocker is switched off in Safari. Make sure all four MachOne extensions are on; Safari then uses the rules MachOne already saved.

“Update failed” shown in red? MachOne couldn’t build new rules this time, and it keeps using the rules it already has. Check your internet connection, then tap or click “Update Filter Lists” again. If it keeps happening, email me.

On macOS 27, ads and trackers get through? MachOne 3.8 and earlier can’t load their blocking rules on macOS 27. Update MachOne to version 3.9 or later.

Safari is using a huge amount of storage? Safari keeps its own log of every request a content blocker refuses, and it doesn’t trim that log while it is running. A streaming video player that retries a blocked request hundreds of times a second could push that file into the tens of gigabytes overnight. MachOne 3.9.1 stops those retry storms: it answers the repeat requests itself, with the same result, so Safari has nothing to log — and your protection is unchanged. On a Mac, quit Safari once after updating and the space it had already used is given back; the file is ~/Library/Safari/ContentBlockerStatistics.db-wal.

A site doesn’t load properly with MachOne on? Open the MachOne popup in Safari’s toolbar, turn on “Pause MachOne on this site,” then reload the page. This turns off most of MachOne’s in-page protections on that site; MachOne’s content blockers, which use its filter lists, still apply there. On Mac, you can turn content blockers off for one site too: in the Safari menu, choose the “Settings for” item for that website and turn off “Enable content blockers.” Then email me the site address so I can fix the underlying rule.

The popup says it can’t read this page? Check that the MachOne extension is allowed on that website in Safari’s extension settings. Safari also keeps extensions off some pages. On Safari’s own pages, such as the Start Page, the popup shows “Not on a webpage” instead. Open a normal website and the popup will show live numbers.

What is “Link Text and Addresses” in the popup? When you open the popup, MachOne can list links on the page whose text shows a different web address than the one the link uses, and link addresses that start with another web address. It states what the page shows, runs on your device only when you open the popup, skips sites where you’ve paused MachOne, and sends nothing anywhere. It doesn’t compare every link, so a link that isn’t listed hasn’t been approved. If a listing looks wrong, tap or click “Report a Mistake.” It starts an email to me with nothing from the page attached, so please include the page address and the link.

Price and Past Purchases

Is MachOne really free? Yes. Every feature is included for everyone on iPhone, iPad and Mac. There are no in-app purchases, no subscription and no account.

I bought MachOne Pro. Do I need to do anything? No, and thank you. Everything MachOne Pro unlocked is now included for everyone, so there is nothing to restore. Keep MachOne updated to the latest version.

Refunds for a past purchase? Earlier purchases, including tips, were billed by Apple, and Apple handles refunds: visit reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in with your Apple Account, and choose the purchase. If a problem with the app led you there, I’d appreciate an email too — most issues are fixable.

Privacy

MachOne doesn’t collect any user data — see the full Privacy Policy. Terms are in the Terms of Use.

Acknowledgments

MachOne downloads filter lists made by the filter-list community and converts them into Safari rules on your device. We are deeply grateful for their work. MachOne also uses the map data, font and artwork credited below.

Filter Lists

Map Data, Font and Artwork

Company names and logos are trademarks of their owners. MachOne uses them only to identify those companies and their products. MachOne is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

Techniques Referenced

Some of MachOne’s in-page techniques — removing ad data from YouTube’s responses, replacing tracker functions with harmless stand-ins, and collapsing empty ad space — follow approaches that uBlock Origin (GPLv3) documented publicly. MachOne’s fingerprinting defense adds noise in a consistent way, following the “farbling” approach that Brave has described publicly. MachOne’s code for all of these was written from scratch.