Lavasoft Ad-Aware Adblocker Alpha

Just got this fresh from Lavasoft's Facebook

-http://devadblocker.lavasoft.com/-



An adblocker alternative for those of us annoyed by the recent fact that AdblockPlus took money from Google and others not to filter their ads

EDIT: Bugs are expected during alpha release. Make sure to create a restore point before installing.

Or better yet, just test the app in a non-working / virtual environment

 

is Lavasoft reliable again? i thought they did something that angered a lot of users iirc.

 

I'm trying this out today and see what I think about it....

 

They were bought out a few years ago by a company with somewhat questionable past. But in spite of this, their free antivirus is pretty good.

 

Garbage. Yes, it blocks video ads and also any subsequent video.

Uninstaller trashed my PC. It deleted WIN 7 fltmgr.sys driver. Had to do startup recovery to get PC to boot.

 

Stay away from this junk,had to use system restore to get windows 7 -64 bit to work again...Don't waste your time...

 

Hi Snoop3. Thanks for the feedback. I'm Nigel Shaw, VP Product Development for Lavasoft. I joined Lavasoft in January of this year, so really just getting going with the company. Lavasoft has definitely had ups and downs. My role is clear: To create the best possible products that delight our users. That means no tricks, no gimmicks, no sales pitches, no bait-and-switches. Just clean, simple software that does exactly what it's supposed to do. Since starting my first task was to get AdBlocker to Alpha. We're excited about AdBlocker. It's revolutionary technology that blocks ads in all browsers with a single simple Windows install, no annoying plugins and no tricky uninstall.

I'd really appreciate your help and feedback making AdBlocker do exactly what it should do, no more and no less.

Nigel

 

Hi Itman, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'm Nigel Shaw, VP Product Development for Lavasoft.

1. This is an alpha product but even as an alpha I will not allow a product to be released if there's a risk of trashing a PC. Can you help me to identify the problem? The uninstall uses standard Windows installer (MSI) and we have tested the install/uninstall a great deal. We've never experienced it uninstalling system files.

2. We're definitely aware that it blocks some things that it shouldn't block and that it lets some things through that it should block. Being an alpha, it will take us another couple of months to get the ad blocking details ironed out.

Nigel

 

Hi SIR***TMG,

Thanks for the feedback. I'm Nigel Shaw, VP Product Development for Lavasoft. As I mentioned in my reply to snoop, I'm very surprised that the installer or uninstaller is causing machine problems. We test the installer extensively and it's a very simple install and uninstall. My own machine is Windows 7 64 bit so if there were any problems with it trashing that platform then I should have seen them by now.

Can anyone else replicate this problem? Has anyone else had it trash a Windows 7 box?

Nigel

 

Ok, its not like Adblock Plus and AdBlock Edge were invented years ago...

 

From a brand perspective, I think it is a wise move to go back to the roots of Ad-Aware: blocking unwanted ads. As AdBlockPlus has shown there is a viable business case beneath it (allowing non-intrusive ads).

HitmanPro managed to relate to its roots as a "call in the cavalry" (other AV's) utility. It managed to revive its user base and acquire new users with a sound and good solution.

Be interested to know what the extra's or benefits of Adblocker would be over AdblockPlus

Regards Kees

 

Nigel, one problem was it made my weatherbug on my desktop stop working. My Network Meter stopped these are my window sidebar apps.It did stop video ads and ads on web pages,but taking my window apps. out was the worst. I had to do a system restore to get them back. Hope this helps you find the problem, I use windows 7 -64 bit. I'm not going to use this again...

 

Thanks a lot for the quick feedback. We will sort that out right away. I admit we haven't tested it with sidebar apps. I'll post to this thread when we track down the issue. As far as the video ads go, we're definitely aware that we're not yet blocking/not blocking all the correct things according to the correct rules. Blocking rules are very complex and we wanted to get it into Alpha to get exactly this kind of feedback so that we can stabilize the app over the coming weeks/months.

 

Thanks for the comments Kees. The benefits of Adblocker are:
1. Simple install/uninstall using a Windows installer. Most people are confused by browser add-ins and non-technical types (like my Dad, for instance) don't know how to install/uninstall browser add-ins.
2. One install works for all browsers. No need for multiple products and multiple installs.
3. Easy on-off switch that turns it on/off for all browsers. No need to hunt in browser settings.
4. Faster. We are pretty fast in Alpha and we are just starting to optimize. Ad-free browsing should be quite a bit faster than with ads because of all the requests that don't have to be called/resolved/loaded. But on the other hand the processing needed to block the ads slows down the browser. So the net effect is not much. We think we have the potential to actually speed up the browsing experience because our processing is done outside the browser in our app. That means we can use optimized compiled code instead of JavaScript. As well we are building some additional new technologies that are secret for now but that will also speed up browsing.

I hope this helps.

Nigel

 

AdBlocker is cross-browser. It works pretty much like AdMuncher, plus it's free.

 

Upon reboot after uninstall, no desktop in WIN 7 x64 SP1. Reboot again to safe mode triggered Startup Repair automatically.

 

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/adblocker.php

I'll just add it to PBFSLW later, and let our brave souls (and their poor machines) continue testing.

 

Thanks a lot itman for the screen shot and details. I'm having trouble figuring out how our uninstaller did that. Do you have the courage to try to duplicate the problem to be sure it's caused by AdBlocker? I'd be eternally grateful.

Nigel

 

Is there a way to turn off acceptable ads policy?

 

Yep, it is disabled by default.

 

Nice, still haven't tried it though, maybe I'll wait for beta. BTW, does it filter https websites?

 

Hi Kupo,

Yes it works with https.

Nigel (VP Product Development, Lavasoft)

 

Hello, thank you for the information. Any ideas when will the stable version be released? Thanks.

 

how i can install it on xp pro sp3?
i download this
-http://adblockdownload.lavasoft.com/alpha/setup.exe-
then i launch it, i allow connect to the Internet(downloading setup.msi)
then after minutes it launch windows installer file(i do not know where is path of file),it say all open browser window will closed but it can not close my Firefox
anyway i closed them manully
i click two tome in the "next" then "install"
then want execute setup.exe and setup.exe want execute msiexec.exe
then setup.exe execute cmd.exe then cmd.exe execute attrib.exe two time
and then cmd.exe excute cmd.exe two time
so it dosent install anything
so if you can make it installer more simple
and please provide real setup file directly

 

You could but that line in your Sig so you always have it with you when posting, just a suggestion