Banish Reviews

This does not block the NYTimes “Open in App” pop up that appears at the bottom of any article in safari, and it also doesn’t block a bunch of other popups on various sites. All permissions are enabled, and the popups are not the smart banners that are native to safari. I’ve reported a bunch to the developer, however, this is more annoying and wastes more time than just dealing with the popups. What a waste of money.

Downloaded Banish to avoid issues with Facebook, Yelp, Google, and LinkedIn. On the rare chance Banish actually blocked anything, it would make the webpage completely empty and unreadable. After trying to make it work for an hour, I accepted that Banish simply does not work, but turns out you cannot even request a same-day refund for this unusable product. Highly recommend that others look elsewhere for a solution, as if the company truly believed the product worked, they’d offer at the bare minimum same-day refunds.

I specifically bought and downloaded Banish because I am trying to avoid automatically viewing LinkedIn profiles in Banish when I click on a link for one in safari (a work related issue). For a while, I would be asked if I wanted to open the link in Banish , I would simply hit cancel, and I would be able to view the page or profile from safari. Eventually that prompt stopped appearing altogether, and any time I clicked a link in safari it would automatically open in the LinkedIn app.

Looking for a way to resolve this, I downloaded Banish. I enabled it through settings/extensions as instructed, and immediately I am encountering the same issue— clicking a link in safari takes me to automatically viewing the linked page from within Banish . I’ve seen the developers be very helpful with issues in previous reviews, so I am hoping for some guidance here.

Does what it says it’ll do… as of right now. But I see that Banish hasn’t been updated in 5 months. Not since before the release of iOS 17. Regular updates give the customer reassurance that the developer hasn’t abandoned Banish .

I recommend not buying this app until the developer has at least updated it to the most current iOS.

I HATE popups and I HATE ads.

To be honest, I'm not really noticing much of a difference after a couple of days with this app. Mostly, I see "login" popups on sites such as forums, social media, etc.. You know, the popups that happen after you scroll a bit and are in the middle of reading something. Disabling Java temporarily in Safari will kill the ads, but this also kills most websites or changes the layout drastically.

Hopefully this is because I'm on iPadOS 16.1.1 and maybe a future update to this app will help. I only surf on an iPad and with Safari. I would pay much more than three bucks for an anti ad/anti-popup extension that is Safari-centric and continuously updated. The market is ripe for such a product!

I'm concurrently using other anti-ad & anti-popup extensions, but nothing seems to kill the "I'm in the middle of reading" popups that have an extremely negative effect on the user experience. It seems like it gets harder every year to keep popups out of my attention span. Bummer.

To be fair, maybe I misunderstood what this app is meant to do.

Those open in app prompts were super annoying. Now just squash The NY Times pop up that tries to get you to use their app and I’ll be ecstatic. Edit: Today I am getting an open in app prompt for Facebook. Maybe they’re faking it or found a workaround or else there’s a bug in this app. Edit: I’ve changed my rating as the NY Times problem remains unresolved and, furthermore, the web site is locking up on me now. Edit: changed my rating back as the NY Times app thing seems to have finally been fixed. Thank you. Edit: NY Times has a new annoying promt that I reported but no response. Hope the developer is okay. If so, then they have become unresponsive.

It’s a great idea; I loathe the apps that hijack your browser and force you to Banish (or worse, worthlessly redirect you to Banish Store even when you already have Banish downloaded, thereby disrupting whatever you were reading). I paid for Banish gladly, and it worked yesterday. Today, it’s not working at all; the Yelp mobile site is redirecting me to Banish every time I try to click on anything. Love the concept, but I’m going to request a refund if this isn’t fixed pretty quickly.

I absolutely abhor being redirected over to an app, or worse, pestered to download a new one when I’m browsing the internet. So, yeah. This is basically the best thing ever. Thank you so much for creating this!

Banish is awesome. I browse Reddit and Twitter frequently on Safari and the Open in App banners have been annoying me for the longest time. I’m glad I found Banish, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone.

Seems to be working OK, as I’ve not noticed any “open in app” messages recently. Developer kindly explained that it will NOT work with all sites, such as Google Earth and probably a few others. Makes life easier!

Extra useful if you use a smaller-screened device. It’s so annoying trying to use a device on the modern web without this installed - huge thanks to the developer.

It wasn't blocking the email prompt for Reddit (which I've been ignoring for YEARS) so I emailed the dev and a week later that was blocked. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Also blocks some other popups but it's worth the cost for me just for Reddit.

I found Banish while searching for a way to make searching the internet less annoying and more efficient. I am so glad that I paid the very reasonable fee for Banish. It has delivered exactly what it advertised with extremely easy set up. Great app, I highly recommend it.

It also works to block websites from forcing you to use their app in order to view certain content instead of using safari! thanks to Banish I can keep using Safari. Love it! 👍😎

They fixed it to work on zillow. Thanks

I would like to sit down and take the time to talk about this 5 Star Design app! The Developer has put a great deal of Hard work Time Sweat and yes Love into the Coding of this software! For you myself and our family it’s easy to set up and use! If in your busy schedule you are taking the time to read this I hope you will Download this Unique Outstanding Design App now! Don’t wait or put it off you won’t be sorry! ( really ) well time for me to move on so they say with that thought I want to Thank the Developer for putting Banish out here for all of us! I truly truly appreciate and Tip my Hat to you Mr. Developer for a great Idea that you gave with your Heart! Thanks 🎩 .

Thank you so much for Banish. It’s worth every penny. I can open the NYT in Safari without the constant and infuriating screen nagging me to use the NYT app.

(I had even contacted NYT Support and they could not stop the pop-up either. )

I pay for the NYT subscription and I should be able to read it the way I want. Thanks to this app, I can do that again.

First off, the reason I went looking for a tool like this was the recent addition of "Sign in with Google" starting to appear on multiple websites and yes, this app will this app these from being seen. I've only been using it for a day but realize I've been to a few other sites that have done away additionally annoying popups and and VERY HAPPY with my cleaner web experiece using this app now. THANK YOU!!

Edit: Works perfectly again! Thanks!

Original Review: Banish used to work great, blocking the annoying “open in Reddit app” pop-up. It still does that, but as of a few weeks ago, it’s started locking up the screen so that you can’t scroll down on Reddit unless you zoom in so that the page doesn’t fit the screen anymore. It’s made Banish essentially unusable, and I’ve had to disable it and deal with the Reddit pop-up. Please update Banish to address this issue!

I was looking for all types of Adblockers and trying to change advance settings, but it was useless to stop those annoying and reason to completely leave a site: “Open in App.” Banish fixed the awful pop ups, and i can use sites like Reddit without being constantly forced to try to use an app i don’t want on my phone or iPad. I champion this app to everyone because it is my most important app on my apple products. When i do a full restore, it is 100% my first app i prioritize so i can start looking at the internet.

After much annoyance by Google popping up every time I use Safari Banish stopped it. Took less than 5 minutes to install and have it working.
$3 well spent.