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.
The first beta has arrived, and there is a lot to unpack. To kick things off, AdGuard for Windows can disable Windows 10 Tracking using an out-of-the-box solution: you don’t need to bother with any settings. Windows tracking heads the list, followed by the introduction of long-awaited DNS filtering and social login. And the Browser Assistant pausing protection for 30 seconds brings up the rear.
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 similar to Alisa or Siri, but developed by Microsoft. Its feature set is enabled by default and periodically sends usage and performance data to Microsoft. Those assistants help, but they also gather 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 become invisible to advertising disseminators and, consequently, will stop receiving Microsoft ads.
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. “Wait, so that’s it?” you may ask. Actually, we performed a much more tasks, but many of them have been omitted.
Changelog
- [Enhancement] Allow select several content types for the shown records in the filtering log #3392
- [Fixed] Filtering log shows wrong type of applied stealth-mode option #3423
- [Fixed] Slow UI performance in the main window #3322
- [Other] Do not block Exit in context menu when service is failed #3403
- [Other] Exit from "License" tab via clicking "Esc" #3385
Upgraded CoreLibs to v1.7.2
- [Fixed] Unhandled C++ Exception in finishWithResult() #939
Upgraded DnsLibs to v1.3.10
- Minor fixes