Daring Fireball
Shares rank 20 of 26 newsletters by recommenders
A long-running blog on Apple news with small, non-intrusive ads that recommenders say avoid tracking. Critics say it is too tied to Apple and drifts into unrelated topics.
A long-running blog on Apple news with small, non-intrusive ads that recommenders say avoid tracking. Critics say it is too tied to Apple and drifts into unrelated topics.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 25%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Small, non-intrusive ads
“Daring Fireball never runs these tracking ad networks with tons of flashing and annoying ads.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “How I block all online ads” “actually having small, non-intrusive ads that I wouldn't ever feel the need to block”
Comment from 15 Aug 2026 in “Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin” Avoids tracking and analytics
“Daring Fireball never runs these tracking ad networks with tons of flashing and annoying ads.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “How I block all online ads” “He claims to never look at his server logs and got rid of Google Analytics ages ago.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “How I block all online ads”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to read on mobile
“dedicates only about 50% of the screen width (on mobile) to content, and leaves the other half blank”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “'Your Frustration Is the Product'” “It isn’t mobile friendly, and the white on grey, while cool, is a bit hard to read.”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “The Most Popular Blogs of Hacker News in 2025” “he's narrowed the text another ten pixels”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo” Too close to Apple's interests
“His business is too tied to being in Apple's good graces anyway to take him that seriously these days.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA” “Gruber spent the past decade applauding every Apple mistake”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “'F*ck You, Make Me' Without Saying the Words” Drifts into unrelated Apple news
“continues to be increasingly so irrelevant that they sometimes veer off into unrelated Apple news”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Steve Wozniak launches merch store” “Gruber has always done that. Years ago I made a Chrome extension to filter out all of his detours”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Steve Wozniak launches merch store”
Other newsletters people recommend
The four most recommended other newsletters, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ed Zitron newsletter | 46 | 42 | 52% | 12 | — | — |
| Simon Willison's blog | 21 | 2 | 91% | 9 | — | Approved |
| SemiAnalysis | 20 | 12 | 63% | 8 | — | — |
| acoup.blog | 19 | 0 | 100% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Daring FireballThis page | 5 | 15 | 25% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“he has become a little more skeptical, called out apple and generally done a better job of reporting”
“Gruber has always done that. Years ago I made a Chrome extension to filter out all of his detours”
“Stopped reading DF ever since his unhinged posts mocking the war crimes being committed in Palestine at the hands of Israel.”
“continues to be increasingly so irrelevant that they sometimes veer off into unrelated Apple news”
“these EU-bashing articles lowered the enjoyment I got from his blog underneath the bar for me”
“actually having small, non-intrusive ads that I wouldn't ever feel the need to block”
“Blogs like macrumors and daringfireball are notorious for not having any clue about what is going on in the broader industry.”
“which is not the case for Gruber's website”
“I have no idea why people read this guy”
“keeping basically a simple blog with the same layout and still consistently pulling in over $40,000/month”
“dedicates only about 50% of the screen width (on mobile) to content, and leaves the other half blank”
“he's narrowed the text another ten pixels”
“Gruber spent the past decade applauding every Apple mistake”
“That was the only way to use it on my phone.”
“audio quality being worse than appropriate for someone who has been making a chunk of their living from podcasts for years”
“It isn’t mobile friendly, and the white on grey, while cool, is a bit hard to read.”
“His business is too tied to being in Apple's good graces anyway to take him that seriously these days.”
“But $11K (a week!) is outrageous to support Daring Fireball.”
“I have no interest for anything sold in ads in their RSS and I assume they are tracking in the links that you click too”
“He claims to never look at his server logs and got rid of Google Analytics ages ago.”
“Daring Fireball never runs these tracking ad networks with tons of flashing and annoying ads.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.