How to block ads in Apple News?

NogBadTheBad

That would be my guess as well.

pfguy2018

Popping back in to answer my own question, in case any others run into this issue. It turns out that adding iadcontent.apple.com and news.iadsdk.apple.com to the blocklist, and then rebooting my iDevices, was the trick. Now seem to be blocking ads in the Apple News app (fingers crossed that this lasts...)

Full process was as follows:

Following instructions above, created file AppleAdBlockList.txt containing following entries:
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost

[Apple ads]

127.0.0.1 metrics.apple.com
127.0.0.1 advertising.apple.com
127.0.0.1 banners.itunes.apple.com
127.0.0.1 ca.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 cf.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 cs.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 iadmoo.apple.com
127.0.0.1 iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 su.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 tr.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 ut.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 securemetrics.apple.com
127.0.0.1 iadcontent.apple.com
127.0.0.1 news.iadsdk.apple.com

At Diagnostics -> Command Prompt, used the upload button to upload this file
At the same screen, used Execute Command Shell with the following command: mv /tmp/AppleAdBlockList.txt /var/db/pfblockerng/AppleAdBlockList.txt
Created new group under pfBlockerNG -> DNSBL -> DNSBL Groups pointing to the file at /var/db/pfblockerng/AppleAdBlockList.txt
Ran a Reload under pfBlockerNG -> Update

Hope this will be helpful to the next person who encounters this issue.

rkbest

@pfguy2018 Is this still a working solution? I want to bloack ads on my ios devices and apple apps too.

pfguy2018

@rkbest
Seems to still be working on my end.

rkbest

@pfguy2018 It seems, the last two and few more entries are already on the adaway blocklist.
The following were not and maybe those are working for you.
Adding for reference:
127.0.0.1 metrics.apple.com
127.0.0.1 advertising.apple.com
127.0.0.1 banners.itunes.apple.com
127.0.0.1 cs.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 iadmoo.apple.com
127.0.0.1 su.iadsdk.apple.com
127.0.0.1 securemetrics.apple.com

Will update after i am able to use custom list.

rkbest

@pfguy2018 that update command throws an error on my end.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'var' (T_VAR) in /tmp/user_code/7qDq0q on line 7ode_text

With this command as suggested

mv /tmp/AppleAdBlockList.txt /var/db/pfblockerng/AppleAdBlockList.txt

pfguy2018

@rkbest
Hmm. There have been a few pfSense and pfBlockerNG updates since the instructions were posted. I wonder if something has changed that would affect that command. Unfortunately, I am not knowledgable enough to troubleshoot that - I was basically following a recipe to make this work. Sorry I can't be of more help here.