DNS-level protection
System-wide blocking
Every program on your PC looks up an address before it connects. AdBolish answers those lookups itself, so ad, tracker and malware domains get nowhere, whether the request came from Chrome, Windows, Office or a game.
Filtering happens on your PC. Nothing you look up is sent to us.
Use cases
When you'll reach for it — System-wide blocking
Real situations, not a feature list.
- Cut the ads and trackers out of desktop apps a browser extension never sees.
- Block known malware, phishing and scam domains before a download or a login page loads.
- Keep every browser on the PC filtered, including the ones you forgot you had.
- Pause everything for five minutes when you need to, from the window or the tray.
What it does
Everything System-wide blocking handles
Built into AdBolish, and on by default where it should be.
Every app, one filter
Your PC's DNS is routed through AdBolish, so every browser and program is filtered the same way, with nothing to install in each.
From the moment Windows starts
A small Windows service, the AdBolish Protection Service, answers your PC's DNS before anyone signs in, for every account on the PC.
One switch, plus pauses
Protection on or off from Overview or the tray, Pause 5 min or Pause 1 hr, and Resume now. Each category page has its own switches too.
CNAME uncloaking
A harmless-looking domain that points at a blocked one is caught too. The Realtime log marks it via CNAME.
Optional encrypted DNS
Send the lookups it doesn't block to Quad9, Cloudflare, NextDNS or your own DoH address, so your network and ISP can't read them.
Undoes itself
Your original DNS comes back when routing is turned off, the service stops or you uninstall, and if lookups keep failing it hands DNS back so you stay online.
How it works
Using it, step by step
- 1
Install AdBolish
At the end of the install, Windows asks once for permission to set up the protection service. Click Yes.
- 2
Let it load
The first run compiles the blocklists. Then the switch reads Protection on: Filtering every app on this PC.
- 3
Carry on as normal
New networks are picked up as you join them. Names on your VPN keep resolving through the VPN's own DNS.
Under the hood
How it actually works
What it is doing, named plainly.
- Method
- Local DNS resolver on 127.0.0.1; adapters' DNS pointed at it by the protection service
- Block reply
- 0.0.0.0 / ::
- Blocklists
- HaGeZi (GPL-3.0), updated daily, swapped in without a restart
- Upstream
- Your network's DNS, or DoH via Quad9, Cloudflare, NextDNS or a custom URL
- Platform
- Windows 10/11 (x64), runs entirely on your PC
Windows asks for permission once, at install, to set up the protection service; the app itself never asks for administrator rights. Decline it and AdBolish filters only lookups sent straight to 127.0.0.1 until you click Set up.
Also in AdBolish
The rest of the protection suite
Questions
System-wide blocking, answered
Get AdBolish — System-wide blocking included
System-wide blocking is part of AdBolish, free for Windows 10 and 11, with every other feature alongside it.