Disclaimer AdGuard for Windows is not an open-source project. We use Github as an open bug tracker for users to see what developers are working on.
This release incorporates all the best of two previous beta versions and two release candidates. Double-checking neve hurts, right?
There are four key changes, starring DNS filtering that will protect your DNS traffic from interception by ISPs and fraudsters. Another killer feature is an updated Stealth Mode. We’ve expanded its functionality by adding four new options that prevent Windows from collecting user data. Plus, license activation via social login and pausing protection for 30 sec. A good advanced toolkit for an ad blocker, we’d say.
DNS filtering
This feature has been long present in other AdGuard products. Not only will the DNS module protect your DNS traffic from the ISP’s and fraudsters’ interception, it will also block ads. However, it’s important to stress that the DNS doesn’t replace normal protection, rather it works best when coupled with it.
We have a wide and regularly updated database of domain names, and now you can set it up on AdGuard for Windows.
You can choose the server type (DNS-over-HTTPS/DNS-over-TLS, etc.) that suits your needs best or add your own custom DNS server. Also, here is a link to our Knowledge base, where we have collected the most popular DNS providers and added a quick setup option. One click, and your DNS is ready for use.
Disable Windows 10 Tracking
Windows Tracking has four options: you can disable Windows telemetry, turn off advertising ID, disable Windows Defender automatic samples submission and disable WAP push message routing service.
To illustrate the significance of disabling system telemetry, let’s take Cortana, a virtual assistant developed by Microsoft. Its feature set is enabled by default and periodically sends usage and performance data to Microsoft. This assistant helps, but it also gathers a lot of statistics. If you, as a user, have privacy concerns (which is completely understandable and even expected in this day and age), we’ll help to disable telemetry nice and easy.
As for removing an Advertising ID, if you checkmark this option, you will stop receiving Microsoft ads (in the action center, start menu, etc.).
Authorization and license activation via social networks
This function has already been available in our app for Android. We decided to add it here, too, because it’s truly a convenience feature.
Now, you have one more option of how to activate your license: not only via logging to your AdGuard personal account or manually entering your license key. If the email from your AdGuard personal account and the email you use for authorization in Google or Facebook are the same, you can simply authorize via these social networks. No more trying to remember email/password from your personal account and entering it! One click, and you are logged in and your license key is activated.
Pause protection for 30 seconds
In v7.4 we introduced the new BA – more independent, glorious and autonomous. But despite it’s good in many aspects, some users asked us to return one missing thing from the old Assistant. So we did.
The old Assistant had a menu option ‘Do not filter for 30 seconds’. For instance, this function will help when you need to visit a website that won’t work when an ad blocker is enabled. In this case it makes sense to briefly disable filtering and see its content. That’s what the returned back ‘Do not filter for 30 seconds’ is also used for. But we went further and made it more convenient by adding a new function called ‘Disable protection for 30 seconds’. It will disable filtering on all websites for the same time period. You can find it in the tray menu of the main app.
Four major tasks don’t seem like a big deal. Actually, we performed many more tasks, but some of them have been omitted.
Changelog
- [Enhancement] Allow select several content types for the shown records in the filtering log #3392
- [Fixed] Slow UI performance in the main window #3322
- [Fixed] Filtering log shows wrong type of applied stealth-mode option #3423
- [Fixed] Connecting to a DNSCrypt-protected DNS causes AdGuard to throw a connection error #3455
- [Fixed] Assistant issue: AdGuard not installed or installed incorrectly #3469
- [Fixed] Recently added filter won't show up in the filter editor #3340
- [Fixed] List of built-in DNS servers is doubled on UI #3456
- [Fixed] Selecting Simplified Chinese leads to problems with subscriptions #3457
- [Other] Exit from "License" tab via clicking "Esc" #3385
- [Other] Do not block Exit in context menu when service is failed #3403
- [Other] "Not Found" icon carries over to other Settings sections #3413
- [Other] Change the priority of languages for the situation without zh-TW translations. #3442
- [Other] Wrongly use zh-CN encoding in zh-TW interface everywhere. (v7.5 beta 1) #3443
- [Other] UI crashes during localization process for ZH-cn locale #3470
Upgraded CoreLibs to v1.7.54
- [Fixed] Unhandled C++ Exception in finishWithResult() #939
- [Fixed] Problematic userscripts #1273
- [Fixed] Process name detection causes scary warnings in Windows Security #1316
- [Fixed] Filtering log doesn't show information about cookies #3406
- [Other] ERR_CONNECTION_RESET #3468
Upgraded DnsLibs to v1.3.10
- Minor changes