Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson is an independent Mac and iOS developer who runs Underpass App Company, a sole proprietorship he started in 2016. He is best known for StopTheMadness, a browser extension that stops websites from breaking normal browser behaviour such as copy and paste, right-click menus and text selection, while also stripping tracking parameters to protect privacy.

Before going independent he worked as a software engineer at Rogue Amoeba from 2008 to 2016, and earlier at Marko Karppinen & Co. and Francis Technical Services. He also contributed to open-source Mac projects including the Vienna RSS reader and ClickToFlash. He holds degrees in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

StopTheMadness started on Mac Safari and came to iPhone and iPad in 2021 once iOS supported Safari web extensions. In December 2023 he launched StopTheMadness Pro as a universal purchase across Mac, iPhone and iPad, later adding features such as running custom scripts on web pages. His other apps include StopTheScript, StopTheFonts, Link Unshortener and Homecoming for Mastodon. Under the Lapcat Software name he writes a widely read blog on Apple platform bugs, privacy and App Store policy and he briefly drew wide attention for diagnosing the 2020 macOS OCSP outage that stalled app launches.