Long ago the Internet ceased to be just a database providing billions of various resources. It has rather turned into a virtual business center. Heaps of advertising and spam, gigabytes of direct mailing lists, banners and slogans: a straightforward appeal to make a fortune. That is where the money is made. However, for most users of the World Wide Web the Internet remains a universal source of information. As for advertising in the Web – this phenomenon is not simply widespread, but permanent. We get accustomed very quickly to the surrounding. Spending much time in the Internet, one can with certainty affirm: we live in the world of advertising. However, it’s quite hard to get used to it. The point is that the advertising is aimed to attract attention. Being guided by this principle, ads makers invent progressively newer and newer kinds of irritants to make the audience react. Thus, when opening a required Web-site, our attention is focused not on the things we have searched for, but on all sorts of banners and pop-up windows. Moreover, the advertising placed in the most noticeable parts of the page distracts us from reading the required text. Besides, downloading numerous banners is a useless waste of time and money. As a rule, advertising is very bulky, which affects the speed of downloading a page. So if you are using a dial-up connection on the pay-per-time basis, your expenses increase proportionally to the growing page load time. And if you pay for the actually sent and received information (i.e. for traffic), the advertising amounting to quite an impressive volume will devour a considerable sum of money when settling the accounts. All in all, the noise in the form of unwanted advertising exhausts the traffic and increases the headache. Banners and banners and banners... How to deal with them?

There are plenty of applications that could make the life of a regular surfer easier. The amount of such utilities overshadowed the quality long ago, and picking out the most suitable anti-ads tool today is a Herculean task. However, I singled out a number of applications for a closer examination. By their functionality they are quite identical (at least, I expect them to fulfill the declared functions up to the mark). The question is: which application to choose for everyday use? Obviously, it should provide an intuitive and user-friendly interface, maximal functionality (though not to be overloaded with superfluous options that are redundant for this type of applications). Besides, one of the most important requirements is the correct behavior in any situation. For this analysis I downloaded six most popular and wide-spread ads blockers: AD Killer (http://www.softcows.com/), AdsGone (http://www.a1tech.com/), AdsNoMore (http://www.adsnomore.com/), FilterGate (http://filtergate.com/), AdMuncher (http://www.admuncher.com/), AdsCleaner (http://www.adscleaner.com/) and undertook to scrutinize them with the purpose of finding the best one. Considering the fact that I was choosing a tool for personal use and had never been trying any of such before, and therefore had no favorite, I consider my review objective enough. Nevertheless, I would like to provide the reader with a complete picture of my trial so that you could choose one to your own taste. Let’s select the best ads deactivator, which can be mastered easily, reliably, once and for all. So we start...

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1. AD Killer http://www.softcows.com/
Not going deep into the provided functions, this application may seem to be a good candidate to become an on-duty ads blocker. However, when comparing AD Killer with other applications it becomes obvious that this blocker provides quite a poor set of features: regular blocking of pop-up windows, deactivation of banners by addresses (including Flash ads), the possibility to compile the black and the white list of advertising addresses. Unfortunately, even these few functions do not work properly. As an advantage of this tool I would name an intuitive standard menu, which allows even a beginner to feel at ease, and the cleanup mechanism of various data in the Internet Explorer. It also gives the possibility to choose a security level for pop-ups blocking. But to my mind, this rather points to the fact that developers have failed to create a common universal blocking algorithm.
Resume: Pop-up windows – 3, banners – 3, design – 4, additional functions – 0.
Inefficient and not functional enough.
Advantages: handy design.

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2. AdsGone http://www.a1tech.com/
The first thing that caught my eye at launching the application was its clumsy design and awkward interface. Numerous tabs, unnecessary pictures and explanation notes contrasted with the set of options far from being smart. No doubt the features are quite easy to master– considering that the tawdry hints and icons actually provide some information. However, the functions are not enough. As for pop-up blocking, it is perfectly in order. There are even a black list and a white list for the windows headers. But the banners are what AdsGone cannot duly cope with. It is impossible to add unwanted sites to the list of addresses, as well as to disable Flash advertising. One can’t even plainly track spy software (though such a feature is declared) due to the same inability to update the list of hostile applications. The last straw laid by AdsGone to break the camel’s back was an absurd bug in the design. It was revealed when trying to maximize the main window (see screenshot).
Resume: Pop-up windows – 5, banners – 2, design – 2, additional functions – 0.
Awful design and middling features for banners blocking.
Advantages: good pop-ups blocking.

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3. AdsNoMore http://www.adsnomore.com/
It happened so that I installed AdsNoMore just after AdsGone. The first thing that came to my mind was: this is the same application but without those obvious flaws. The design turned out to be quite good without being superfluous tawdry. The advantages of the tool are the possibility to block Flash ads and update the black list directly from the developer’s website. In all other respects, AdsNoMore still reminds of AdsGone both by the quality of the application and by most of its functions. The only functional difference is the lack of redundant features like assigning hotkeys and protection from spy software. I personally failed to understand the meaning of setting a password for ads blocking, especially taking into account the multi-user nature of Windows, therefore I tend to consider this option totally useless. Thus, lack of the above features can hardly be a disadvantage of AdsNoMore. In the result, having taken a closer look on the application, I concluded that this blocker provides nothing fundamentally new and useful, except for a pair of options.
Resume: Pop-up windows – 3, banners – 4 design – 4, additional functions – 0.
A tolerable application. A little bit of everything.
Advantages: the same – a little bit of everything.

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4. Filtergate http://filtergate.com/
Starting with this application my review will compare the ads blockers of a distinctively better quality, both from the functionality and performance point of view. For this reason I decided to skip the description of all features provided by each of these tools, but to dwell on their peculiar functions and describe the shortcomings that still hold users away from the utter bliss. Well, the major distinction of FilterGate from the previously discussed blockers is that it is able not only to cut out banners, but to “seam” the pages anew without advertising. Now and then we come across the pages desperately overloaded with banners. Being armed with any of the previously discussed «cutters» we would definitely get rid of the advertising, but what can be said about the look and feel of the page after that? The page is disfigured by a multitude of white patches that remain after the amputation of commercial images. The feature provided by FilterGate allows saving pages from such scarves. As a result, the user enjoys a carefully arranged Web page that contains only the information required. The fact that FilterGate supports this functionality is a great advantage, but the minus is that this feature cannot be disabled. FilterGate gives no choice.
As for advertising detection, FilterGate copes with it quite satisfactorily, thought not perfectly: it did miss some banners. I hoped that it was caused by an out-of-date black list, but unfortunately updating it did not help. Besides, FilterGate provides the feature for cutting ads by size, but again the user has no options to set this very size. Users have to be satisfied with preset parameters, not that this list of sizes can be found particularly. To my mind, all the benefits gained by the availability of such a feature come to nothing due to its disgusting implementation. Among the positive features I would like to mention the possibility to cut out banners when the image to be downloaded is located in another website or refers to another page.
As far as pop-up processing is concerned, the impression is quite controversial. On the one hand, this application is equipped with good options for pop-up blocking management. For example, FilterGate allows disabling pop-up windows that appear at certain events, e.g. when loading or closing a page. On the other hand, despite the abundance of options, the implementation of pop-up blocking is far from being perfect – there is something that is still beyond FilterGate’s power. A shortage of intellectuality, if you wish.
In addition to the common functions, which are a must for such applications, FilterGate offers a number of other useful features. For example the adult filter. The application attempts to deny access to certain websites protected by a password. However, the protection from unauthorized access to forbidden pages cannot claim to be serious: it is easily disabled by closing the application.
Resume: Pop-up windows – 4, banners – 4 design – 5, additional functions – 2.
The application is quite a good one... Giving allowance for insufficient intellectuality in pop-up blocking and impossibility to set the size of banners.
Advantages: good design, correct operation.

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5. AdMuncher http://www.admuncher.com/
The better the application, the harder it is to describe its functionality. AdMuncher offers a wide range of various options, most of which are meant solely for fine tuning of ads blocking. Considering the number of provided options, this application is likely to be the leader. However, most of its features are not employed by regular users and therefore they rather clutter up the inconvenient interface, which is already uninformative as it is. Even if in rare cases claimed by users, the actual benefit is not that big. For example, how often would you need to disable the option for changing the color of the scrollbar in the browser window? I assume, not that often. Besides, by changing the color, website developers create the general appearance of the page, and disabling it affects the thought-out design. But it is not only this option that matters… The consideration of similar unnecessary features can be omitted completely. Instead, let’s turn to the description of really important functions of the software.
Certainly, it contains quite a comprehensive black list of advertising addresses. The application fearlessly copes with blocking the banners from the list, but for one only thing, which appears to be a common drawback for all blockers considered: it is impossible to edit the internal black list. However, it does allow adding new addresses and automated updating. And despite missing functionality for editing, the list can still be looked through. AdMuncher processes banners again and again with great pleasure, sorting them by size. Unfortunately, like the previous blocker, it turned out to be too selective when picking out suitable sizes, and there is no opportunity to influence its choice. In other words, the application provides no options for setting additional sizes for ads cutting. An appreciable advantage of the application is its potential for sewing pages anew, without banners and empty patches. Users are free to choose the way of displaying pages: either with or without empty spaces in place of ads. I did not notice any serious problems with pop-up blocking – quite a good variety of settings is provided.
Having rambled in the application menus for some time, I found the statistics of the blocked ads, which turned out to be rather poor: it contained the number of blocked units without any further description. A pleasant discovery was that the developers hit upon the idea to count the traffic saved by the application. To my regret, the first impression was spoiled by the fact that the saved traffic was counted by multiplying the number of blocked units by 8. In other words, the developers assumed that each banner or a pop-up window makes up 8 KB. For sure, such information cannot be treated as reliable.
Resume: Pop-up windows – 5, banners – 4 design – 3, additional functions – 3.
A very good one, but for its design and some serious disappointing inaccuracies, it could claim to be the leader.
Advantages: thorough tuning of ads blocking functions.

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And finally we have reached the leader of today’s review. Only the tool with minimum drawbacks in comparison with other blockers or the one without such at all could become the winner. Of course, the major criterion for the selection was a flawless operation of common functions, i.e. excellent quality when detecting and cutting out the advertising. The application features that quicken and ease the internet surfing gave additional points. Redundant or unclaimed functions did not influence my evaluation and were considered to be neither positive nor negative.

6. AdsCleaner http://www.adscleaner.com/
Being guided by the criteria listed above, I made bold to declare the absolute winner of the analysis. As you may already guess, it is AdsCleaner. To be furnished with proof and to ground my choice, I decided to provide a detailed description of all its major features.
In short: this is the only tool with multilanguage support, including Russian. As far as the design is concerned, AdsCleaner found the golden mean between the convenient functionality and attractive appearance.

Ads Blocking
For sure, this application provides a complete set of features for cutting out banners that can be found in previously discussed applications. Namely, AdsCleaner allows blocking the advertising by a black list of addresses. And the size of this default list is impressive. Besides, the list can be automatically updated from the developer’s site. Unlike other described applications, the black list is not hidden, but is available both for reading and editing. Regardless of the fact that there is no physical division into system and user lists, the system and user addresses can be separately viewed. Such a structure of the list is more convenient, particularly when the application allows creating plenty of such lists (each for a certain occasion) and moreover, importing and exporting them. The possibility to maintain a white list is also available, which enables users to list the addresses beyond the blocking rules.
Besides, AdsCleaner blocks the banners not only of standard sizes (468õ60, 88õ31, etc.), but also any others defined by user. At that, the developers put some default data into the list of forbidden sizes, which eases the commencement of blocker’s operation. In contrast, developers of FilterGate and AdMuncher decided to create a list of forbidden sizes and thus deprived us of the right to add the required sizes ourselves. As a result, AdsCleaner turns out to provide the functional combination of these two blockers. Moreover, it offers another handy feature – the approximation of image size, which is very reasonable, since sizes may differ by a few pixels. So we don’t need to set such sizes as 10x10, 11x10, 12x10, 10x11, 10x12, 11x11, 11x12, 12x11, 12x12, but limit ourselves to such values as 11x11 allowing an inaccuracy of 1. Besides, AdsCleaner furnishes the option for blocking images from other websites.
Another feature I appreciated was the statistics for blocked banners. It is implemented in the form of a list containing the address of the blocked image, the time and the reason for blocking (i.e. by size, list, etc.). In addition, it provides the full name of the page that contained the banner, as well as the page it referred to. This list can also be exported from the application. But the most pleasant surprise regarding the statistics was the calculation of the actual (not averaged) traffic saved by the blocker. Surely, AdsCleaner could hardly become the leader without the possibility to clean and recompile pages. Fortunately, it perfectly meets this challenge. The application can either cut out a banner and squeeze the space it occupied or substitute it with an empty frame. In the first case the page integrity is preserved, while squeezing is recommended, if a page is overloaded with graphical elements and extends to more than one screen.

Pop-up Killer
From the first sight the menu for working with pop-ups does not impress much: it only contains an option to switch on/off the filter for pop-up windows. However, this seeming simplicity proved to be wrong. The application coped with all provided pop-ups better, and in some cases similarly to other blockers. i.e. it did not allow opening a single unwanted window or deactivated a single window that was required. So the developers did manage to avoid redundant options due to perfect algorithms and thus to prevent users from the necessity to tune numerous settings for each concrete case. It should also be noted that there is a white list of allowed addresses, for which the pop-ups filter is not applied. This list is separated from the white list of ads blocking, though one list can be exported in place of another.

Additional Features
In addition to its major functions, AdsCleaner provides supplementary features that help users to simplify and accelerate Internet surfing. For example, visualization of links to already visited pages. Simply hover the mouse cursor over a link, and the application will show a hint specifying the last date of visit, user comments, its rating and even a screenshot of the page. Moreover, each visited site is indexed in the AdsCleaner database, and all previously opened pages of one website are united into one group. It gives users the possibility to get the information about all visited pages of one domain. Besides, the application supports loading multiple pages with a single click, managing opened Internet Explorer windows, translatina and Web page into various languages and voicing. And there is one thing I liked most: AdsCleaner prevents users from typing long addresses of various internet resources again and again, but allows them to replace such addresses with alias names. Additionally, the Internet can now be not only seen, but with the help of AdsCleaner any selected fragment of the current page can be heard. Integration with Internet Explorer contributes to noticeable extension of the browser’s features. One can easily switch between opened IE windows, interrupt working in the Internet and then continue from the same point. On top of everything, with AdsCleaner all the information about any Internet activities can be deleted at any time. The application erases all entered addresses, passwords, cookies, history of visited pages or browser cash – all you need is to click one single button or configure automated deletion, for example, on exiting the application or periodically. That seems to be all. I tried to mention all the common and additional features of the tool. The only thing I would like to add is that AdsCleaner provides some other customizable functions. But since they do not relate to the common features of the blocker, I won’t dwell on them and allow the readers to try research them on their own.
Resume: Pop-up windows – 5, banners – 5 design – 4, additional functions – 5.
As a matter of fact, this is the only application from those described above that I kept on my computer.

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