

After 15 years as shareware, Ad Muncher is now completely free - MurrayHurps
http://www.admuncher.com/free

======
abcd_f
Zero technical info on the site, weird. But since it also filters out ads in
non-browser apps, it should be some sort of proxy. Then how does it handle
https'd ads? Self-signed certs and all? Perhaps dwindling supply of http
resources and increasing privacy concerns are the reasons why it's "now
completely free" :-/

PS. I've been Windows user since 3.11, I am very pro-privacy and I've never
even heard of Ad Muncher. Make you what you want from it.

~~~
rational-future
Haha, quite self-sentric, aren't we.

I've been reading sci fi books since the 1980s. I guess, by your logic, any
title I haven't heard about is just bad ...

I've been using AdMuncher since 2002 or so and IMHO it's absolutely great.
It's the number 1 reason I didn't switch my desktop to Linux. It's also the
reason I'm using a Windows tablet (Dell Venue 11 Pro).

This is the statistics, since last I installed Windows:

Statistics for Ad Muncher v4.93.33707/5539 Adverts removed: 181,604 Bandwidth
saved: 5,346 MB Counter started: June 7, 2014

I've tried AdBlockPlus and uBlock many times, but they leave way more ads than
AdMuncher. One of the reasons may be that they are more popular, so
advertisers put more effort in defeating them.

~~~
selmnoo
You haven't really refuted any part of GP poster's points. There's no
technical info on the site, there's no telling what kind of user data they may
be taking and doing who-knows-what with it. This is solid grounds to stay away
from the product.

~~~
MurrayHurps
[http://www.admuncher.com/privacy](http://www.admuncher.com/privacy)

------
cider
Don't use AdMuncher because it will slow down web surfing and increase the
bandwith usage. AdMuncher only supports HTTP 1.0 - it strips out important
HTTP headers like gZip compression or keep-alive connections. 15 years ago
this might have been OK, but doing this in the last 10 years is plain dumb.
Adblocking makes more sense if it is done in the browser directly, like
AdblockPlus does.

------
88trh
What? 100,000 people decided it was worthwhile paying for this product, but
you feel guilty about taking their money, so now it's free? This is one of the
most bizarre things I've read recently!

~~~
wmt
There are a few clues in the text like "I've made a net loss running you for
the last two years" and "At some point in the future, I may need to offer
complimentary software products to Ad Muncher user" hinting that he thinks
that bulding a bigger userbase by being free and then bundling ads into it
would make more money, as paid users were no longer paying the bills.

~~~
freshflowers
Bundling ads may be the wrong business model for the target audience... doubt
that that's the plan.

------
niklasber
I don't mind free stuff, but to be honest I don't see why you release it for
free. Seems like you had something sustainable going on. One person selling
everything he owns to pay 3 persons' salaries don't seem sustainable.

------
andreasklinger
Would this be an optimal scenario to open source it? You could still bundle
the install for the "official binary" with other things.

~~~
niklasber
Also thinking about this. Wouldn't it be a good idea to open source it and cut
down on your staffs' working hours. Seems like you got a fairly big user base
so there should be developers out there willing to contribute. Perhaps you
could cut down on your costs and merge pull request from open source
contributors.

~~~
MurrayHurps
Definitely something I'd like to do, but preferably with our new v5 codebase.

[http://www.murrayhurps.com/blog/ad-muncher-
version-5](http://www.murrayhurps.com/blog/ad-muncher-version-5)

------
y4mi
never heard of it. might've been different 15 years ago, but its probably the
only choice nowadays with AdblockEdge on Firefox and µBlock on Chrome.

and on that note: how does this differ from them? different block lists?
alternative blocking mechanism?

~~~
userbinator
From the "blocks ads in all browsers" tagline this appears to be a filtering
proxy server, so it essentially MITMs your connection to filter stuff out
and/or modify it before it gets to the browser.

I've been using Proxomitron, which is a similar (discontinued) freeware
product, for the same purpose. The only real pain is HTTPS - which AdMuncher
doesn't appear to support - but Proxomitron can filter HTTPS too (you need to
install a local certificate), albeit it was written at a time when single-core
was the norm and so needs to be constrained to run on one core due to some
race condition that I'm not too bothered with figuring out and attempting to
fix at the moment...

Proximodo is another open-source alternative which aims to be compatible with
it but also lacks the increasingly-needed HTTPS MITM feature. (Should we call
this "benevolent MITM" since it is completely under the consent and desire of
the user, as opposed to the usual "malicious MITM"?)

~~~
MurrayHurps
If I may, I'd like to take a moment to honour the memory of Scott R. Lemmon.

He was a hell of a coder, and person, and ten years after his passing his work
is still hugely appreciated.

Cheers wherever you are Scott.

------
xenogears1969
In case anyone is wondering, it works fine on Windows 10
[http://i.imgur.com/TIwVPBD.png](http://i.imgur.com/TIwVPBD.png)

------
xenogears1969
Thanks Murray. Glad this went freeware, I will recommend it to friends who
have been complaining about ads in non-browser apps since Ad Muncher blocks
them system-wide and isn't limited to browsers.

Looking forward to trying v5 when it comes out in the future since it'll have
SSL blocking.

------
dzhiurgis
Anyone knows how to block popups on pirate bay?

------
bruceb
I don't get blocking some ads. What does it hurt to have a basic banner add
next to the story you are reading? They took the time, effort, and money to
create content you want to read why block it? I understand blocking ads that
take over your page but not basic ads.

~~~
J_Darnley
Where is this banner coming from? Whose servers are you contacting to get it?
Whose javascript is it running? Is it loading flash or java rather than an
image? How many people end up tracking you for requesting "one banner"?

As far as I am concerned the advertising industry has screwed themselves over
by allowing security threats to be delivered via their networks.

