You may be amused to know that I debug my content blockers by keeping around a debug build if WebKit with a handful of breakpoints at the right spots to trace them. The experience really does suck…
Well, I have the same exact experience and frankly, it is not what I intend to repeat again.
At least developers can do that. But most of the people who maintain filter lists are not developers and cannot afford enjoying compiling WebKit for the sake of finding what exact rule has blocked this or hidden that.
Honest question: Why not just drop support for Safari? If Apple wants to make it hard to write content blockers, they can do without content blockers, and the users can see ads and eventually switch to a browser that doesn't show them ads.
I do honestly believe they want to make content blockers good. Maybe the problem is that we don't communicate our pains good enough, maybe it's that they don't hear us sometimes, but I think that we have the common goal and this post will help them understand us better.
At least developers can do that. But most of the people who maintain filter lists are not developers and cannot afford enjoying compiling WebKit for the sake of finding what exact rule has blocked this or hidden that.