topic Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker? in Computing Advice & Technology Chat

Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

otherego — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:28:52 GMT

The relevant site is here:

It could be useful for those who prefer not to use Firefox, but dislike excessive advertising on sites. Supported operating systems are Windows XP to Windows 8, both 32- and 64-bit.

IE seems to suffer a lack of ad-blocking software. Simple AdBlock (I think that's the name) worked on one of my machines, but it turned out that it would only block a certain number of ads before demanding money in order to continue the good work.

According to the site linked to above, its browser support is impressive:

AdFender works with all leading web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera. In addition to this AdFender also supports AOL Browser, Avant Browser, Chromium, Comodo Dragon, Epic, Flock, Ice Dragon, K-Meleon, Lunascape, Maxthon, Pale Moon, QtWeb Internet Browser, RockMelt, SRWare Iron and Waterfox.

I can't remember where I originally found it - it's running on one of my temporary virtual machines (XP Pro), where it seems to use very few resources. Since I've done very little internet surfing on the VM, I can't vouch for its effectiveness, and would be interested to hear whether anyone else has any experience with it.

And of course, whether anyone knows of any problems with it.

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

al**bear — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 04:14:05 GMT

AdBlock plus is now available for IE

but they seem to have sold their soul to Google (on IE & FF) as google ads and sponsored links are no longer blocked by ABP, so I use , a google only blocker on it's pages

BTW - Google is now actively working against ALL adblockers and trying to hide them

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

old*angler — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 05:09:27 GMT

I have just installed it after removing AdBlock and AdBlock Plus from my Chrome browser since I wasn't really happy with their performance.

I'll let you know in a few days how it performs.

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

*scyllabub* — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 12:42:43 GMT

I await your verdict 🙂

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

otherego — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 22:44:49 GMT

Also awaiting o*a's verdict with bated breath!

I had another look at the AdBlock site. I could still see nothing for IE, but am probably completely wrong about that. Again.

Has AdBlock Plus really sold out to Google? I'm not certain. They allow "unobtrusive advertising by default, but it is simply a matter of unticking an option to negate this. And let's face it, they need the money - like all of us. At least the opt-out is still simple.

Sure, they take money from advertisers to whitelist their sites - but again, any user who objects can simply un-tick the "Allow unobtrusive advertising" option at any time.

The removal of AdBlock Plus from the Google Play store or whatever it is can be readily circumvented by installing it directly from the AdBlock site - apparently. I own no Android gadgetry to try this.

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

al**bear — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 04:44:33 GMT

https://adblockplus.org/en/internet-explorer

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

old*angler — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 21:59:56 GMT

So far I am really impressed with the blocker's performance, Very, very few ads have gotten through.

The console offers lots of detail about what was blocked and there is a "cookie" tab that shows what cookies were set with the potential bad or annoying ones flagged in red. A one-button click deletes all the red ones or there is a button to remove them all.

I'm not seeing any performance hits at all.

The only feature it seems to lack that I would like is a way to right-click a banner ad (several did slip through) and flag it to always be blocked.

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

paisley.screwdriver — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:44:31 GMT

Thanks OE, I've now been using AdFender since your mention of it last July.

I'm on IE8 and haven't noticed any drawbacks whatsoever.

It's unobstrusive and just gets on with its job.
I must say I'm very pleased.

My 6 months block total is well over a ¼ million!
Actually a staggering 257,768

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

johnsmit_afo8wz — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 02:52:53 GMT

I am using AdFender from 2009 onwards when they released product. It is doing quite a wonderful job for me. One thing I really liked was, it does not hog the CPU and does the job of blocking ads very well.

Also no needs to worry about what browser you use (In the Initial versions they were configuring the browsers to use AdFender as a proxy.)

Over the period I found, AdFender improved a lot (AdServers too improved a lot) with periodic updates either by new version of the application or by filter updates.

Couple of things I would really like these folks to look at is

1. Support for other platforms (I am slowly switching to linux)

2. HTTPS support. Lot of websrvers are migrating to https now. (This is what I mentioned as Adservers too improved)

3. Ability to add new item to the list with a simple click on the page..

4. and more.. ..

Overall I am very happy about this product.. I Love it.....

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

gandha1946 — Mon, 02 May 2016 19:44:28 GMT

I have just taken it out, it was blocking Google!!! Useless

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

zero3k6 — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 15:21:39 GMT

2. HTTPS support is now available in it.

By the way, I made an IRC channel for AdFender. It is #adfender on chat.freenode.net:6697.

Re: Has anyone else tried AdFender - a Windows ad-blocker?

mcfc1632 — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 23:48:49 GMT

Hi - I have installed Adfender and it seems very effective at blocking ads.

What I can not find though is how to 'allow' slected sites to not be blocked - I am new to all this - but us ut called 'whitelisting' where you notify which sites you are happy to allow ads from?

Anyone any ideas?

Thanks