Thank you!
Ad Muncher has now been installed and will start blocking ads on sites you visit.
Tips and tricks
- Hold CTRL or SHIFT and right-click on a filtered page to display the Ad Muncher toolbar, you can then report or exclude a page from filtering, as well as block content that annoys you.
- Right-click twice on the Ad Muncher system tray icon to quickly disable and enable filtering.
- If the system tray icon is red, it means filtering is currently disabled.
- Notices about blocked popups can be disabled under the "Options" / "Popups" section of the configuration window.
- If a page has not been filtered, please check if the URL starts with "HTTPS". If so, Ad Muncher currently cannot filter encrypted connections like this.
What's new?
Ad Muncher, I launched you
15 years ago, and since day one I've felt slightly uneasy for charging people for the faster, safer and more pleasant browsing experience you provide.
Anybody that knows me knows that I apologize a little too much, but I honestly felt the need to apologize to every single user for making them pay their hard-earned $29.95.
Charging this way though has allowed me to fund development myself, and I never needed investment or other revenue sources that could interfere with my goal of an influence-free ad blocker.
But now, with the financial support provided by over 100,000 people, I've decided it's finally time for you to be let free.
What?
Ad Muncher is normally available for $29.95, plus $19.95 per year after that, but will now be available in the same form as a completely free product.
All users will receive filter list updates. Weekly to begin with, then daily if our hosting can handle the load.
Seriously?
Yes, nothing has been changed, we're just moving to much higher capacity hosting, and removing all the anti-piracy rubbish we needed previously.
How?
This will be financially difficult for me. Salaries for three people, along with our usual expenses, will be covered entirely by myself by selling almost everything I have, and taking on some external work.
At some point in the future, I may need to offer complimentary software products to Ad Muncher users (for example, a recommended spyware blocker or antivirus). These will be done respectfully, and will only be products that compliment Ad Muncher and which I genuinely use myself.
I will
never, ever accept payments from an advertising company to allow their ads through our list, or install any third-party software on your system.
I've previously turned down offers to make significant money from both of these sources, but I need to sleep at night, and users of Ad Muncher deserve to be treated right after all the support they've given me.
I just paid damn it!
I completely understand how you would be feeling if you recently purchased Ad Muncher, only to see this announcement.
Ad Muncher wouldn't be here without your support. You saw a struggling software product and paid your hard-earned cash to help keep it alive. Your support is appreciated, and will never be forgotten.
My only request at this point is that you understand the difficult position this transition will place me in financially, and accept my goal of giving you no less in terms of service than if Ad Muncher wasn't free.
We have a 30-day full refund policy that I'm happy to still provide, but every refund will reduce the chances of Ad Muncher surviving as a free product.
What about version 5?
Work will continue on our new cross-platform filtering solution. We're six years into the development and as committed as ever to bringing this to market.
Hmmm, ok then
Ad Muncher, you'll never make me rich, and I've made a net loss running you for the last two years, but I just don't care.
You've made a lot of people happy, you've let me do what I love for a living, and I'm honestly just looking forward to seeing you making browsing faster, safer and more pleasant for a larger number of people.
If you're reading this, I'd like to leave you with one last important request:
Please spread the word.
Then grab us a beer
We didn't want to put this in, but after over 30 requests we've succumbed.
Really, really love Ad Muncher and want to make sure the free version doesn't make our partners leave us?
Change log
Ad Muncher v4.94 Changelog
Release date: October 19th, 2014
[Build]/[Type] - [Description] ==================================================
Key: E = Enhancement
F = Fix
34121/F - Small fix to update system.
34118/F - Fixed crash with larger filter lists.
34117/F - Fixed error about missing download source in Install.ini.
34089/E - Implemented an entirely new update system, designed to handle the
increased load we're anticipating from our free release.
33900/E - Removed all of the license management and anti-piracy code.
Ad Muncher v4.93 Changelog
Release date: July 13th, 2012
[Build]/[Type] - [Description] ==================================================
33707/E - Final packaging changes for release.
33705/F - Fixed crashes of some 64bit processes.
33688/E - A few small filtering tweaks and fixes.
33676/F - Many small fixes and tweaks to memory management and filtering code.
33526/F - Fixed dialog display after registration reset.
33514/F - Fixed icon recreation after explorer crash, also fixed the same when
running as an administrator.
33502/F - Fixed occasional interference with HTTP protocol switching.
33499/F - Welcome balloon is now not shown if balloons are disabled on the
system, which avoids some weirdness when clicking the icon on some
versions of Windows.
33482/F - Fixed system tray error message.
33446/E - Several improvements and bug fixes to the new system tray and other
interface code.
33333/E - Version number is now displayed in a more compact way.
33332/E - Implemented a better method of handling new list formats in the
config file to avoid old types piling up.
33330/E - Removed the recently blocked popup list from the logs tab, as these
are now available through the toolbar and reporting them from the
browser to the program introduces a small delay in opening all
popups.
33317/E - Improved engine behavior when helper files are retrieved and
filtering is disabled.
33316/E - Rewrote the system tray handling code from scratch. Now displays an
"installation complete" balloon on installation or upgrade instead
of opening the browser. Supports high-DPI display setups for the
tray icon, allows for easier language translation, and removes
another chunk of old ASM code.
33177/F - Removed some old tray icon hiding preferences (now just hide/don't
hide).
33176/F - Fixed incorrect behavior when clicking the "Import configuration"
button on the registration dialog.
33175/F - Fixed hung installer on some systems when launching URLs.
33163/F - Fixed OS detection code.
33162/E - Many internal improvements to the codebase.
33128/F - Fixed bandwidth saved value shown on "About" tab.
33126/E - The prompt shown when trying to sort the filters by category or
keyword now defaults to "No".
33126/F - Fixed version reporting when sending reports from the toolbar.
33109/F - Fixed broken shortcut key combos.
33108/E - Removed the option to open blocked popups from the system tray menu,
as this is now available in-browser with the toolbar.
33104/E - Added an option to the "Interface" tab to disable the in-browser
toolbar if required.
33103/E - Many more improvements to helper script handling.
33070/E - Improvements to helper script handling.
33068/E - Removed the option to prevent modifications to the browser status
bar. No modern browser needs this feature as they have all removed
support for status bar modifications.
33053/F - Fixed potential crash when a page was excluded from filtering and
then included again.
33033/E - Added hotpatch support to patching engine.
33016/E - Improved the appearance of the system tray icons.
33013/E - Improved tag removal code.
33006/F - Fixed bug where installations that were configured to check for
beta updates and had basic licenses were failing to receive non-beta
list versions.
33004/E - Finished implementing a new toolbar system for Ad Muncher. This
system displays a toolbar inside filtered pages when ctrl or shift
is pressed while right-clicking on a page, or when a popup is blocked
or other information needs to be displayed.
This system has replaced the old browser extension system and means
we don't need a different version of the extensions for every
browser type, and will allow us to expose much more complex
functionality in the future.
32986/F - Fixed crashes under Windows XP.
32954/E - Improvements to mutex handling in the config code.
32935/F - Fix to the beta update check frequency.
32934/E - Improved handling of MP4 videos.
32932/E - The "about" tab of the configuration window now shows the last four
characters of the registration code to help users see which code is
in use.
32930/E - More improvements to exclusion handling and helper script embedding.
32888/E - Made browser extension compatible with recent Firefox releases.
32886/E - Vastly improved handling of external content on excluded pages so
that excluded pages should rarely need extra filters to exclude
them completely from filtering.
For the complete change log, please
click here.
Ad Muncher, I launched you 15 years ago, and since day one I've felt slightly uneasy for charging people for the faster, safer and more pleasant browsing experience you provide.