Sidestep For Safari

Most websites do not host their own code. They pull shared libraries, jQuery, React, Bootstrap and hundreds more, from a handful of huge content delivery networks. Every page you open sends those networks your IP address and tells them which site you are on. You never agreed to it, and you cannot see it happening.

Sidestep quietly puts a stop to it.

It keeps an identical copy of 224 common libraries on your device. When a page asks a delivery network for one, Sidestep serves the local copy instead. The network is never contacted, so it has nothing to log. Pages load exactly as before, often faster, because the file never leaves your device.

YOUR AD BLOCKER DOES NOT DO THIS

Content blockers leave these requests alone on purpose. Blocking a page's jQuery would break the page, so the request goes through and the network still sees you. Sidestep answers it locally instead, so nothing breaks and nothing leaks. It works alongside your blocker, not instead of it.

NOTHING TO SET UP

Install it, switch it on in Safari, and it works. No account, no rules to write, no maintenance.

WHAT YOU GET

• 224 libraries stored on your device, including jQuery, React, Vue, AngularJS, Bootstrap, Font Awesome, D3, Lodash, Moment.js and MathJax
• 33 delivery networks covered, including Google Hosted Libraries, cdnjs, jsDelivr and jQuery CDN
• Tracking headers removed from any request that still reaches a network, so it cannot tell which page you came from
• Optional Google Fonts blocking, for when you want no font requests leaving your device at all
• Turn it off for a single site with one tap, whenever a page needs the original file
• A live test page, so you can see for yourself that it is working

BUILT TO BE TRUSTWORTHY

Sidestep makes no network requests of its own. There is no account, no analytics, no telemetry and no server. It cannot phone home, because there is nothing to phone. Your settings never leave your device.

The bundled libraries are the same files the networks serve, byte for byte, so pages that verify their contents still work normally.

ONE PURCHASE, EVERY DEVICE

Sidestep runs on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Buy it once and it works everywhere, in 33 languages.

Sidestep works in a similar way to the open-source projects LocalCDN and Decentraleyes.