Two things upset me about many websites: their blocking normal Mac features like contextual menus, autocomplete and copy, and tracking. I’m not in the least averse to regular ads, and understand how many sites need their revenue, but so many sites now, even UK government services like the Met Office, feed a ludicrous number of tracking services.

I only use two Safari extensions now, both of which I strongly recommend. The first is Jeff Johnson’s unique StopTheMadness, which fixes all those blocked features, and Better, which protects my privacy from trackers. The trouble with them both is that they’re so good at their jobs that I no longer notice how much they do for me: like all the best extensions, they just get on with it. When I want to copy or use Safari’s contextual menu, StopTheMadness just works as you’d expect. And I haven’t seen any tracking ads for, well, since I installed Better.

I don’t understand how StopTheMadness does its job. Jeff, its developer, probably knows about as much about the Mac and web services as anyone that I know – you’ll see a string of his valuable comments through my Mac articles here.

If you’re unsure as to how effective StopTheMadness is, he currently has a free trial available: his website explains more. StopTheMadness also supports Firefox and Chrome, although they don’t have free trials available at present.

And in case you’re wondering, I paid full price for my copies of StopTheMadness and Better (which is developed by Ind.ie) – and for Jeff’s other product, Underpass, an encrypted file transfer and chat app which doesn’t rely on any external services. They’re each available in the Mac App Store, and Underpass is in the iOS App Store too.