Scan & Fix 50 registry issues FREECNET Editors' review
Online advertising is one of the best examples of "can't live with it; can't live without it" we can think of: it's annoying, at times extremely so, yet it pays the bills and even occasionally informs, entertains, and assists consumers. Most of the time you wish you could just block it out, though, especially the worst offenders, the flashing, animated Web ads designed to stooge-slap your attention span. AdFender is a free, standalone ad-blocking tool that not only works with all major browsers but also some less common ones, too, such as Opera, Safari, Maxthon, Lunascape, Avant, K-Meleon, and Epic. It can also block ads in P2P and IM apps. It's frequently updated to keep up with the latest adware and browsers.
AdFender's documentation notes that you'll have to allow access through your firewall or security software for its filtering to work. Most of the time, AdFender runs in the background and resides in the system tray, where we could disable or exit the program, open the Main Console, enable debugging, and access other functions. The Main Console is a compact dialog displaying statistics for the Current Session and Lifetime. The left-hand menu let us add or remove allowed Web sites, select apps for filtering, and manage your IE cookies, history, and log files. We could also set AdFender to play a sound when it blocks something, though that can be more annoying than the ads themselves. Under Settings, AdFender had added several Microsoft sites by default, including update, download, and Office sites. There's a good Help file, too.
It's extremely easy to see what AdFender does for yourself: Simply browse to an ad-saturated site, activate AdFender, and reload the page. We did this on numerous pages that see millions of hits every day, including some big news, entertainment, and social networking sites. AdFender didn't block every ad, though nearly everything it allowed was actually a site promotion or was otherwise hosted or linked to the main site and content, so it's debatable if it's even advertising. But AdFender replaced a lot of annoying, flashing, bleepedy-bleeping ads with plain gray bars labeled Advertising. Toggling the tool off and reloading the page restored the ad content. AdFender worked well without being a problem itself.
Publisher's Description
From AdFender:
AdFender is a free and effective ad blocking solution. It removes clutter from web pages such as expanding banner ads, flash ads and blocks other intrusive in-your face advertisements. AdFender runs unobtrusively in the background and help you surf faster saving valuable bandwidth. It works with all leading web browsers, instant messengers and P2P apps. AdFender is easy to use and requires no user configuration. It helps remove profiling or tracking cookies that compromise your online privacy. AdFender uses minimal system resources and is frequently updated.
What's new in this version: Version 1.6 adds new filters.
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All versions:
4.0 starsout of 31 votes
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Current version:
4.4 starsout of 14 votes
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My rating:
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"Works good so far"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
FREE, speeds up the browsers, works on ALL of them at the same time.
Cons
none so far
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"completely useless"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
nothing!!!!!!
Cons
doesn't work ... tried everything suggested in the publisher's faq ... my browser pages still fill up with **** ads in an instant before anything else. wasn't worth the time.
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"Excellent ad blocker!"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
Works well in blocking ads in all the browsers I have, so this is the very best and does not use too much out of my computer!
Cons
Could not stop some of the popups/popunders, but I don't know if I should reconfigure the browsers to turn off their popup blockers so Adfender can do its job, or maybe its just not good enough on certain sites?
Summary
I still think this is the best software, and it is free!
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"Ok for a free ad blocker"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
Easy to install worked well initially, most pages were ad free
Cons
Have had product for about a month and I really don't think they update the blocked ad sites. sites such as yahoo and mail.com initially were ad free for me, now they are clutterd with ads, tried running update kept getting message no updates available and I could not figure out how to add my own rules, help page not clear
Summary
Good for a free ad blocker but i guess you get what you pay for. I had Ad Muncher but got tired of their licensing issues..tried this one, while satisfied at first I will try others.
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"Packs a punch, the best!"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
hassle free, install and forget software and blocks 99% of the ads, my statistics shows 3210 ads blocked and 16mb of bandwidth saved. highly impressive!
Cons
None I noticed
Summary
Highly recommended, install and forget piece of software, the developers did a wonderful job in making browsing hassle free. Thank you!
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"Performs as advertised"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
Stopped those annoying popups that occur when you pass your mouse over a highlighted word.
Cons
Caused frequent crashes of IE9. Numerous times a day the "IE has stopped responding and needs to close" error message would occur.
Summary
Turned out to be more trouble that it was worth. I uninstalled it.
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"Great Program"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
Runs in your system tray so it doesn't bog down your browser when trying to load a page. Blocks ads and unlike a lot of other adblockers does not slow down page loading. I hardly know the that the programs is running.
Cons
a rare ad page seeps through every blue moon. Not nearly often enough to be anonyed.
Summary
Love this program. Yet another that works, but does not keep my browser from working.
Well like a lot of other programs, this one fails to hold true. I used it for a few weeks and thought it was great, until all of a sudden it wouldn't block "ANY" ads. That's not the worst part, twice Avast blocked it from doing something malicious while I was browsing. I uninstalled and reinstalled a few times. After the second block by Avast, I ran a scan with Malwarebytes and it found something in Adfender. I don't know what exactly, because my Malwarebytes is not saving a log for some reason; however, whatever it found and removed from Adfender, rendered it incapable of initializing. As I said, I uninstalled and reinstalled to make sure it wasn't a certain version or copy of the download only. I don't know if this because of Adfender makers themselves, but CNET needs to be aware and check the download and program again themselves. Potential users be careful.
Updated on Mar 24, 2013 -
"Easy to user and works great."
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
Easy to user and works great.
Cons
Easy to user and works great.
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"Adfender help"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
This ap was so easy to use my non-technical wife of 42 yrs used it and it stopped the annoying ads slowing down her snooping on Facebook. She used to yell at the compluter and now all is quiet on the western front. Thank You ADfender
Cons
Had to fight my firewall to install it. I have Windows Vista and all I had was a tiny window in the left upper corner of my screen. I just started poking at it and finally hit the "allow this site" to come in.
Summary
I have tried a lot of different programs to get rid of this ad, slowing down the computer.. They only resulted in new things popping up and invading my computer...things like Claro tool bar, that is extremely hard to delete. Ended up restoring my system to avoid it. Then I added Adfender and everything is cool. Thanks
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"Finally 1 ad-blocker for all browsers"
Version: AdFender 1.60
Pros
Works like a charm!
Cons
It's showing a few addvertisments on some croatian sites,but that's rare.
Summary
Try it,especially if you're using multiple internet browsers.
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