AdBolish 0.1.0: one blocker for every app on your PC

A browser extension only sees the browser. Windows, Office, chat apps, games and everything else on your PC look up addresses too, and most of them phone home while they do it. AdBolish 0.1.0 is the first build of a blocker that sits where every one of those programs asks for an address, so a single switch covers them all.

It runs on your PC, there's no account, and it's free.

Protection for the whole PC

• Filtering every app on this PC. Click Restart as administrator, approve the Windows prompt, and AdBolish routes your network adapters' DNS through itself. Ad, tracker and malware domains get no address, so they never load, in your browser or anywhere else. Administrator rights last until AdBolish closes, so after each Windows sign-in you click it again to filter every app.
• Lists that ship in the installer. Ads & trackers, Threats (malware, phishing, scams and command-and-control servers), Crypto-mining and Encrypted DNS bypass are on from the first run, with no download needed. The lists are by HaGeZi, check for updates once a day from a signed feed, and swap in without a restart.
• More lists, off until you want them. Newly registered domains, Device & app telemetry, and the Social media, Gambling and Adult content filters each have their own switch under What to block.
• Trackers in disguise. A harmless-looking domain that points at a blocked one is caught too. The log marks it via CNAME.
• New networks and VPNs. AdBolish picks up networks as you join them, and names on your VPN keep resolving through the VPN's own DNS.

See what it stopped

• Overview. Blocked today, unique domains blocked, an estimate of data saved, blocks over the last hour, day or week, and the share by category.
• Ad networks. Every ad network and tracker AdBolish stopped, with every domain each one tried to reach.
• Activity. A live log of blocked requests with the app that asked, the network behind it and the rule that matched. Every row has an Allow menu: the domain, the whole network, everything one app looks up, or the domain for that app only.
• Blocked per app. Which programs on your PC kept trying to reach blocked domains. Telling apps apart needs AdBolish running as administrator.

When something breaks

• Site broken? sits at the top of every page and in the tray menu. It lists what was blocked in the last minute, grouped by site, so you can choose Allow for 1 hour or Always allow.
• Exclusions. Check any domain or pasted URL against the lists, keep a list of domains that are never blocked, add custom blocks of your own, and manage the per-app exceptions you made from the log.
• Pause 5 min and Pause 1 hr turn blocking off briefly and resume on their own, which is the quickest way to tell whether AdBolish is the cause at all.

Browsers, encrypted DNS and family filters

• Browsers that go around it. A browser set to always use its own secure DNS skips AdBolish. A banner names the browser and the setting to switch off, and Turn off secure DNS in Chrome and Edge can do it for those two for you.
• Encrypted DNS. Optionally send the lookups AdBolish doesn't block to Quad9, Cloudflare, NextDNS or your own DoH address, so your network and ISP can't read them.
• SafeSearch on Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo, and YouTube Restricted Mode (Moderate or Strict), for every browser on the PC. These are filters, not parental-control software: anyone with administrator rights can change them.

It undoes itself

Your original DNS settings come back when you quit, when you sign out or shut down, when an update installs, and when you uninstall. If lookups keep failing, AdBolish hands DNS back to your network by itself so you stay online. If it was ever closed by force, the next administrator start, a reinstall or the uninstaller puts your settings back.

Your browsing stays yours

Filtering happens on your PC. AdBolish counts only what it blocks: allowed lookups are never recorded, the live log is held in memory and gone when the app closes, and no domain you visit is sent to us. Crash reports and anonymous usage analytics can each be switched off in Settings ▸ Privacy & diagnostics.

How it's free

AdBolish shares a slice of your PC's idle bandwidth through Massive, which you agree to at install. You can turn Share idle bandwidth off at any time, though blocking pauses while it's off. The details are on how it's funded.

What it doesn't do

DNS can't hide ads served from the same address as the content you came for, so most YouTube video ads still play. AdBolish pairs well with a browser extension rather than replacing one everywhere. And it filters the Windows PC it's installed on, not your phone or the rest of your network.

The full manual is in the docs.