Rinse

Ad-free YouTube and a cleaner web, right inside Safari.
iPhone · iPad · Mac — no VPN, no proxy, no account.

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Rinse is a Safari extension app in the spirit of Vinegar, with a site-wide ad blocker built in.

• YouTube without ads. Ads are cut out of the player data before they load. Anything that still slips through is muted, played at 16× and skipped automatically.
• Background playback, if you want it. Turn on Keep playing in the background in the Rinse app, and the video keeps playing when you lock the screen or switch apps. Pausing from the Lock Screen still works. It's off by default, so YouTube pauses as usual.
• Ads and trackers blocked on every site. Three Safari content blockers carry about 143,000 rules from EasyList, EasyPrivacy and RU AdList, plus Rinse's own rules.
• Off with one tap where you need it. If a site breaks, or you want to support it, turn Rinse off there from Safari's extensions menu or in the app. Subdomains are included.
• Private by design. The content blockers never see the pages you visit: Safari applies the rules itself. The YouTube extension only asks for access to youtube.com. Nothing is collected or sent anywhere.

 

What's inside

Extension	What it does	Access
Rinse for YouTube	Strips ad payloads from the player, skips stitched ads, optional background playback	youtube.com only
Rinse Ads	Blocks ad networks (EasyList + RU AdList network rules, 75.7k)	none
Rinse Privacy	Blocks trackers and analytics (EasyPrivacy, 56.3k)	none
Rinse Page Cleaner	Hides leftover ad slots, banners and brandings (element hiding, 11k)	none

The app shows at a glance whether everything is on, walks you through enabling the extensions step by step, and holds the settings: background playback and the sites where Rinse is off. It's in English and Russian.

How it works

flowchart LR
  subgraph YouTube["Rinse for YouTube (Web Extension)"]
    BG["background.js<br/>scripting.executeScript<br/>world: MAIN"] --> PAGE["page.js<br/>YouTube's JS world"]
    CS["content.js<br/>isolated world"]
  end
  PAGE -- "prunes adPlacements / adSlots / playerAds<br/>from ytInitialPlayerResponse, fetch, XHR" --> P[YouTube player]
  PAGE -- "hides visibility & focus changes" --> P
  CS -- "ad-showing? mute · 16× · press Skip" --> P
  CS -- "iOS paused on background? play()" --> P

  subgraph Blockers["Content Blockers"]
    L["EasyList · EasyPrivacy · RU AdList · filters/rinse.txt"] --> C["tools/filters/compile.py"] --> J["blockerList.json ×3"]
  end
  J --> S[Safari applies rules natively]

Loading

YouTube. A custom <video> player like the original Vinegar is no longer possible: as of 2026 YouTube serves no HLS, and direct stream URLs return 403 after about 12–16 MB without a PO token (spike report). So Rinse keeps YouTube's own player and takes the ads out of it:

1. page.js runs in YouTube's own JS world and deletes the ad fields from player responses before the player reads them. It's injected through scripting.executeScript, because YouTube's CSP blocks a plain <script src>.
2. If an ad still starts (for example, one stitched into the stream), content.js hides it with rinse.css and mutes it. A separate ad video jumps straight to its end; a stitched one plays at 16×. Then the ad's own Skip button gets pressed, found by its label inside the ad UI. After a removed or skipped ad, YouTube holds the video back server-side for about the ad's length. That can't be avoided from the page, so a small "Ad skipped · your video starts in a moment" note is shown instead of a frozen-looking player. YouTube's "Ad blockers are not allowed" popup pauses the video and dims the page. page.js prunes it from the player response; if it still opens, rinse.css hides it and content.js resumes the video. The dimming backdrop is removed by content.js whenever no dialog is displayed over it: a dialog hidden with display: none never finishes its close transition, so YouTube would leave the backdrop over the page, blocking every click.
3. Background playback is off by default. The app stores the setting in an App Group, the extension's native handler reads it, and content.js caches it in storage.local and sets <html data-rinse-background> for page.js. When it's on, content.js swallows visibilitychange, pagehide, blur and freeze before YouTube sees them, page.js reports the page as visible, and if iOS still pauses the video while going to the background, it's resumed.

Everything else. tools/filters/compile.py converts Adblock Plus syntax into Safari's content-blocker JSON:

• network rules with options and @@ exceptions;
• element hiding with per-domain #@# exceptions;
• site.* TLD wildcards, turned into page URL filters.

What Safari can't express (regex rules, $redirect, scriptlets, procedural selectors) is dropped and counted. The output is verified with WebKit's own compiler, and each CSS selector is checked by WebKit, because a single invalid one would silently disable the 250 selectors batched with it.

Website

nikolaikushner.github.io/rinse · Privacy Policy · Support (also in Russian). The pages live in site/ and are published by .github/workflows/pages.yml on every push to main that changes them.

Build and run

Requirements: Xcode 27+, XcodeGen (brew install xcodegen), and an Apple Developer team. The team ID is set in project.yml.

scripts/run.sh mac     # build and open the Mac app
scripts/run.sh ios     # build and install on a connected, unlocked iPhone or iPad

Or run xcodegen generate && open Rinse.xcodeproj and use the Rinse_iOS / Rinse_macOS schemes. Rinse.xcodeproj is generated and not committed.

Release to TestFlight

scripts/release.sh          # archive iOS + macOS, sign for App Store Connect, upload
scripts/release.sh ios      # or one platform

Bump CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION in project.yml before each upload: a build number can be used only once. Signing is automatic with the team in project.yml and the Apple ID signed in to Xcode.

Turn the extensions on

• Mac: Safari → Settings → Extensions → turn on all four Rinse extensions. Allow Rinse for YouTube on youtube.com.
• iPhone / iPad: Settings → Apps → Safari → Extensions → turn on all four. Allow Rinse for YouTube on youtube.com.

Open the Rinse app once after installing or updating, so Safari reloads the rules.

Check YouTube on Mac WebKit

tools/youtube/try-youtube.swift plays a real YouTube video in a WKWebView with Rinse's scripts and prints a per-second timeline: is an ad showing, is it hidden, does the video advance. tools/youtube/check.sh runs it several times on videos known to show ads; --fake-popup N opens a stand-in for the ad blocker popup at second N, to check that Rinse hides it and resumes the video (--orphan: the dialog is already hidden and goes away, the backdrop stays; --plain: an ordinary dialog, which must stay). Run it before a release; with full Rinse you want ad=0s, and any stall should be covered by the note (silentStall ≤ 1s).

swift tools/youtube/try-youtube.swift oufxWa84Fxk             # full Rinse
swift tools/youtube/try-youtube.swift oufxWa84Fxk --no-rinse  # baseline
tools/youtube/check.sh 3

Update the filter lists

scripts/update-filters.sh                                                   # download + compile
python3 -m unittest discover -s tools/filters                               # compiler tests
tools/tests/run-allowlist-tests.sh                                          # allowlist, incl. WebKit
swift tools/filters/validate.swift Extensions/Blockers/*/blockerList.json   # WebKit accepts the rules

If WebKit starts rejecting selectors, regenerate the reject list:

python3 tools/filters/compile.py --dump-selectors /tmp/s.txt
swift tools/filters/check-selectors.swift /tmp/s.txt > filters/invalid-selectors.txt

To see Rinse's state on a YouTube page, run localStorage.setItem("rinse-debug", "1") in the page console and reload. A status badge then shows whether page.js ran and how many ad fields were pruned, ads skipped and background resumes.

Project layout

Path	What
App/	SwiftUI container app: extension status, rule reload, how to enable
Shared/	Code shared by the app targets
Extensions/YouTube/	Safari Web Extension: content.js, page.js, background.js
Extensions/Blockers/{Ads,Privacy,Cosmetic}/	Content blockers; blockerList.json is generated, don't edit it by hand
filters/	sources.json (which lists go into which blocker), rinse.txt (our own rules), invalid-selectors.txt
tools/filters/	Filter compiler, its tests, and WebKit-based validators
scripts/	run.sh, update-filters.sh, icon generator
site/	Website for GitHub Pages: landing, privacy policy, support (EN + RU)
Config/PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy	Privacy manifest bundled in the app and every extension
docs/appstore/	App Store listing (EN + RU), review notes, screenshots and their gallery (gallery.html); built by tools/appstore/make-screenshots.sh and gallery.py
plans/, docs/spikes/	Implementation plan and research notes
spikes/	Throwaway experiments and their tests, kept for reference

Status and limitations

Rinse is alpha: tested on an iPhone 14 Plus and a Mac, not yet on iPad.

• Content blockers can only hide or block. They can't rewrite styles, so a site that reserves space for an ad (such as the empty strip above HDrezka's header) keeps the gap.
• No scriptlets. Filters that need JavaScript on arbitrary sites are skipped, because running scripts everywhere would require "access to all websites".
• Fragile by nature. YouTube changes often. When it breaks, page.js and content.js fall back to YouTube's normal player rather than a black screen.
• Updates ship with the app. Filter lists update with app releases; there are no on-device updates yet.

See plans/rinse.md for the roadmap: an element picker ("hide this"), a per-site allowlist, Shorts, embedded players and an App Store release.

Price

Rinse will be on the App Store for $1.99, a one-time purchase that covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. That pays for the developer account and the time spent keeping up with YouTube. The source stays open: you're welcome to build it yourself for free.

License

Copyright © 2026 Nikolai Kushner.

• Code: GNU GPL v3.0. You may use, study, change and share it. Anything you distribute that's based on it must also be released under the GPL with its source.
• Name and icon: "Rinse" and the Rinse icon are not covered by the GPL. A fork must use its own name and icon.
• Filter lists: EasyList and EasyPrivacy (CC BY-SA 3.0) and RU AdList (CC BY 3.0). The compiled blockerList.json files stay under those licenses. See LICENSES.md.

Inspired by Vinegar by And a Dinosaur. Rinse is not affiliated with YouTube or Google.

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По-русски

Rinse — набор расширений Safari для iPhone, iPad и Mac.

• YouTube без рекламы. Рекламные данные вырезаются из ответов плеера. Если реклама всё-таки появляется, она идёт без звука на скорости ×16 и пропускается автоматически.
• Фоновое воспроизведение по желанию. По умолчанию выключено. Если включить в приложении Rinse переключатель Keep playing in the background, видео продолжит играть при заблокированном экране и при переключении на другое приложение.
• Блокировка рекламы и трекеров на всех сайтах. Около 143 тыс. правил из EasyList, EasyPrivacy и RU AdList, плюс собственные правила Rinse (например, против казино-брендинга на HDrezka).
• Без сбора данных. Блокеры не видят страниц, которые вы открываете: правила применяет сам Safari. YouTube-расширению нужен доступ только к youtube.com.

Сборка: scripts/run.sh mac или scripts/run.sh ios. Затем включите все четыре расширения в настройках Safari и один раз откройте приложение Rinse.

Цена и лицензия. В App Store Rinse будет стоить $1,99, одна покупка на iPhone, iPad и Mac. Код открыт под GPL-3.0: его можно собрать самому бесплатно, а форки обязаны оставаться открытыми. Название «Rinse» и иконка под GPL не входят.