Contents
Best ad blocking software
 

1. Principle of operation

2. Ad blockers review

3. Comparative tables

4. Summary

5. Editor's choice

Best adblocker according to tests carried out in
april 2004:

AdsCleaner 3.0

Read about our winner!


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AdMuncher

http://www.admuncher.com

Price $25.

The interface of the application seems rather ascetic, but it is loaded with features. However, making out all of its parameters might be a bit difficult for a beginner. In addition to blocking pop-up windows and cutting black listed ads, AdMuncher also cuts banners of specified parameters. Unfortunately, the user cannot specify additional cutting dimensions. The user can add a resource to the black list, but since the system list and user list are separated, it is impossible to delete a resource from the system black list.

AdMuncher also shrinks page area previously occupied by advertising information (it should be noted that apart form AdMuncher, only AdsCleaner fully supports this feature, and partially - FilterGate). If you don't wish to ruin the original page design, you can set empty boxes to replace banners.

In addition, AdMuncher supports ad blocking in ICQ, MSN Messenger and other AIM. Among other additional features are blocking refreshing pages and anonymizing functions that help you to conceal your IP when visiting certain sites (this function, though, works in very few cases, and is no competitor to software created specifically for this purpose - anonymizers).

One of the disadvantages is that the application doesn't calculate the traffic it saves correctly. AdMuncher assumes that each blocked banner takes up fixed a fixed amount of 8 KB, which is far from reality.

Although AdMuncher blocks ads not that correct as the review leader (AdsCleaner) does, still it is worth being noted. Anyway, it is one of two most powerful adblocking programs.

Integrated assessment - 8 points

AdsCleaner

http://www.adscleaner.com

Price $24.95

This application comprises virtually all features of the previous ad cutting applications and offers many unique opportunities aimed at not only ad cutting, but enhancing your Web surfing experience as well (for example, comments to the pages you've visited, pop-up hints when hovering the cursor over a previously visited link showing your comment, rating and a small screenshot as well as any additional information, managing open Internet Explorer windows, voicing and translating loaded pages, and many more). That's why a lot more emphasis is placed on this application as compared to the others.

Ad Blocking. In addition to regular banner blocking, AdsCleaner provides for blocking the loading of graphics from other domains, as well as keeping a list of resources for which you allow viewing popup windows, etc. Literally, it is the only program that allows to block images from other domains correctly.

In addition, AdsCleaner supports cutting banners by dimensions that can be custom defined by the user. To add flexibility to ad blocker settings, you can specify the dimensions range, thus enabling cutting the banners with dimensions slightly different from standard.

With this application you can add banners to the black list directly from the Web page and edit the black list of advertising resources. (None of the above listed programs allows this operation). Exporting and importing functions allow exchanging the black list with your friends. And what is the most important, if you got a banner left uncut on the page, you can use IE context menu to sent this banner info to support team. When using this program we have witnessed 3 "ads black list" refreshes per week! May be be it's the answer to the question why AdsCleaner has the most complete list of world ad generators. You can witness this yourself on our summary table page.

AdsCleaner supports shrinking the area previously occupied by ads (much better than other programs). This is very useful when the page is overloaded with banners and, though containing minimum information, spreads over several screens, which makes viewing the page very inconvenient. By shrinking the page AdsCleaner eliminates this problem and displays the page in a more compact way, presenting useful information only (see shrink test). If you wish to preserve the original page design, you can set the application to keep the area previously occupied by banners empty.

In addition there are Privacy Settings that make sure no traces of your Web surfing are left on the computer. The good thing about this feature is that it saves you the trouble of deleting cookies, typed URL's and Internet Explorer history. With AdsCleaner you can remove all data manually as well as at a set time or when loading or closing applications or all browsers.

Links Visualization. In addition to ad blocking, AdsCleaner considerably adds to your Web surfing experience by providing unique opportunities. AdsCleaner is built into the Internet Explorer in the form of a special toolbar that provides access to all of its functions. This is very convenient, since you will have fingertip access to all the features without having to open more windows.

AdsCleaner allows highlighting the pages you've previously visited (strikethrough by default). All you need to do to find out what is behind the link is hover the cursor over the link, and the application will display a pop-up hint with the last view date, your comments, rating and even the look of the page! Thus you won't need to waste your time on loading or unintentionally visiting the same Web pages over and over again.

In addition, right in the Internet Explorer window AdsCleaner provides access to numerous abilities on describing the page you've just visited. For example, you can add your own comment, rate it or make a "snapshot" of the page. The snapshot and all the information you've added will serve as a visiting card for this resource and will be displayed in all pop-up hints for its links.

"Navigating within a domain" is a feature of AdsCleaner that helps you find out whether you've already visited this site and display a complete list of all the pages you've opened with comprehensive information on each page.

New opportunities for Internet Explorer

AdsCleaner allows loading multiple pages with a single mouse click. This feature is a must-have if you are used to working with a large number of open pages. Say, on a certain page you come across a number of useful links. Clicking them one by one may get quite tiresome. You can easily avoid such routine operations by selecting the text area containing the links and using AdsCleaners's "Open in new window" option.

Besides utilizing Quick Groups where you can sort useful resources, AdsCleaner facilitates managing open Internet Explorer windows. With this application you can view the list of all currently open Web pages with a brief summary, and immediately jump to any of them. In addition, you can save the list of open Web pages to suspend your work on the Web and resume it from where you left off.

Sometimes when surfing the Web we may wander into sites in completely unknown languages. If you want to find out what's on the page, you can make use of online translation service that will help you view the Web page in the right language. With AdsCleaner you just need to select the target language and wait for the translated page to download. Unlike other applications (this feature is supported by some alternative browsers like MyIe, FastBrowser, and others), AdsCleaner supports setting up the number of languages available and the types of translation you will need.

To get away from the screen for a while, you can voice the current Web page and listen to the content of any Web document. It should be noted though, that the quality of this voicing feature is rather dubious and to a large extent depends on the speech generator set up on your computer. Nevertheless, in most cases you can actually make out "what they are talking about" so you can sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while listening to the latest brief news or some lengthy article.

It should be noted that such an abundance of features doesn't make AdsCleaner completely over your head. Once you install it, your plain browser will be endowed with new features that you will be eager to try out right away.

Apparently, this is the reason that has brought AdsCleaner an all-time number of awards. And this is yet another proof that we are not alone in estimating it so high.

Integrated assessment - 10 points - It's AdsCleaner that we have chosen for our everyday work.

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