Designed to block ad windows during Web surfing, AdFree proves too labor-intensive to win us over. The program launches at start-up and resides in your system tray under an icon of your choice. Its method is to maintain a massive list of hosts known to display ad windows and block initiated windows from those hosts. A floating counter tracks how many ads are blocked. However, its effectiveness is limited. Because the program will not block pop-ups from unknown hosts, you must continually update the blacklist in order to keep pop-ups at bay. AdFree works fine for what it is, but the ongoing configuration requirements likely will become tiresome for many users.
It's an .exe program that only runs when you want. Doesn't leave a lot of junk on computer when uninstalled
Doesn't overwrite Hosts file leaving untouched on uninstall
Cons
Didn't seem to work. Selected several pages with ads, started program and started browser - ads still there. Verified program running in Task Manager.
Could not find a way to stop program except to kill process in Task Manager
Could not find how to update the Server Host file via program
Summary
Seems clunky. It was difficult to start and stop. Did not stop any ads for me
Block ads from Web sites and applications that use pop-ups.This simple and efficient ad blocker removes ads by utilizing the Hosts file to block sites. It's easy to use and doesn't use proxies. You can manually choose which sites to block or automatically download a list of servers. It filters the Web, AIM, and Kazaa.