Author Topic: Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock! (Read 71276 times)

brotherS · « **on:** March 23, 2006, 04:55 AM »

Here's a program with one of the best ratings over at http://fileforum.bet...Muncher/1031644604/1

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/3743/dcpostadmuncherreviewfileforum.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

Publisher's Description:
Ad Muncher removes adverts, popups, and general browsing annoyances from all popular browsers and Web-utilizing programs. It also removes banners displaying and popup generating programs like ICQ, Morpheus, Kazaa, Grokster, iMesh, BearShare, LimeWire, etc.

I used to use Firefox' AdBlock extension, and so I was skeptical at first - but now I'm really happy that I switched: AdBlock really seems to have a memory leak, since I'm now having no more memory issues with Firefox! It's also great that it works for every browser!

Ad Muncher has LOTS of options (great!) which you do not *need* to change to be able to use it (so even people who do not know their PC from the inside out will love it), but *could* change for some fine-tuning. For example you can add pages that you want to support to the "no filtering" category. I'll add here the *good and friendly* pages that I'm visiting, since they deserve to get some money from ads:

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/5764/dcpostadmuncherreviewconfig18x.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

The list of default filters is really impressive, huh?

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/1940/dcpostadmuncherreviewconfig24w.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

Lots of nice options here - I HATE it when sites change the window size... now I LOVE that I will never see that again

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/1713/dcpostadmuncherreviewconfig34w.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

Ad Muncher comes with an in-built email-the-devs feature and live chat/tech support (using IRC) - I love programs that include something like that, very helpful for newbies!

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/3866/dcpostadmuncherreviewconfig43i.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

You can also see how much insanity Ad Muncher protected you from:

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7623/dcpostadmuncherreviewconfig5b1.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

When you download it it has a 30 days trial version - so go ahead and get it NOW at http://www.admuncher.com/

Still not yet convinced? Take a look:

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/8351/dcpostadmuncherreviewratings0s.png

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

kimmchii · « **Reply #1 on:** March 23, 2006, 05:12 AM »

ad muncher is no where close the the proxomitron, and proxo is free.

brotherS · « **Reply #2 on:** March 23, 2006, 05:36 AM »

Ok, why don't you write a Proxomitron Mini-Review then?

Is it as easy to set up?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #3 on:** March 23, 2006, 05:55 AM »

I anyone is interested it is here: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/proxomitron/

Personally I haven't tried it.

Interesting to note the denial of service attacks the site has been experiencing --- I'd guess that means they may be getting something right!

kimmchii · « **Reply #4 on:** March 23, 2006, 06:34 AM »

Ok, why don't you write a Proxomitron Mini-Review then? Is it as easy to set up?
-brotherS (March 23, 2006, 05:36 AM)

i am not good at writing review, especially on a program like Proxomitron that capable of rewriting the whole webpage.

it is very easy to set up, no installation needed, just unzip, run it and set up the local proxy.

you can get proxo here: http://www.proxomitron.info/
and the lastest filterset here: http://geocities.com...sidki-2006-03-05.zip

{Ed - I corrected the link}

Josh · « **Reply #5 on:** March 23, 2006, 07:27 AM »

The only thing that proxomitron has that ad muncher does not, currently, is support for regexp filters, which 4.8 or 4.9 will include. 4.8 will include options to make filters PER SITE, PER DOMAIN or PER SUB DOMAIN, meaning you can write a filter and not fear about it breaking something else on another page. 4.8's first beta will include full gzip support. Admuncher also comes with a default list which is updated AUTOMATICALLY or manually via the updates menu. The lists are updated 4 times (at least) per week and are highly scrutinized and screened by Jeff, the list maintainer.

I've seen many programs get glowing reviews simply for being free, but free does not always mean better, as most people seem to assume. Proxomitron is nice, but the gui is ugly, the filters are a pain to write (any novice can write a filter for ad muncher with knowledge of regexp), the filters have to be manually updated and its development has stopped some time ago due to the death of its author (RIP). Dont get me wrong, I am not saying ALL commercial apps are better than their freeware counterparts, but in this case, I honestly believe that ad muncher blows the pants off of proxomitron.

alexp · « **Reply #6 on:** March 23, 2006, 02:46 PM »

I have to mostly agree with you Josh, as of just now proxomitron is just slightly more powerful than admuncher but a hell of a lot more complicated to set up and maintain properly, admuncher (using the 4.7 beta version) does all I need just now and hopefully if Jeff gets the regexp filters into 4.8/9 and the per site filters while still keeping it just as easy to use then I'm sure glad I bought a copy when I did.

As you said free doesn't always mean better.

mouser · « **Reply #7 on:** March 23, 2006, 02:50 PM »

it's not just that freer is not always better, but also: more powerful does not mean better.
you have to decide how much time you want to spend customizing and learning, tweaking, etc. or how much you want something to work out of the box and make it easy to use. these are not insignificant issues and the best way to decide is to try out the different programs and figure out which one meets your needs best.

taichimaster · « **Reply #8 on:** March 24, 2006, 03:38 AM »

I am also evaluating ad-muncher currently. It is working great and has an "IP Scramble" function that acts us a surfing anonymizer. The author is also very nice and active in #admuncher on IRC.

I don't think I will purchase it after the trial though (unless I see a discount). There are other free alternatives out there so I don't find it as essential.

The other thing with Admuncher is that it comes with a default list of 20 to 40 processes that it intercepts. It intercepts their winsock calls and reissues them on their behalf, so your firewall would report admuncher.exe is trying to access the internet instead of the originating process. If you create a firewall rule to always grant internet access to admuncher.exe, you are essentially granting internet access to all processes that Admuncher intercepts as well without knowing it.

I guess it's not really a big deal, most if not all local proxies work this way so it's more of a heads up.

wr975 · « **Reply #9 on:** March 24, 2006, 07:19 AM »

The other thing with Admuncher is that it comes with a default list of 20 to 40 processes that it intercepts. It intercepts their winsock calls and reissues them on their behalf, so your firewall would report admuncher.exe is trying to access the internet instead of the originating process. If you create a firewall rule to always grant internet access to admuncher.exe, you are essentially granting internet access to all processes that Admuncher intercepts as well without knowing it.

I don't think Admuncher comes with a default list. It just adds any application acessing Internet as "filter target".

About AdMuncher to allow Internet access... Could you test this behavior on your system?

I've Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall and Admuncher installed. AdMuncher is allowed to do "code injection" and Internet access.
Kerio still intercepts any process trying to access Internet (even those who try to get access via IE, like LeakTest or Google Video Player).

all local proxies work this way

AdMuncher is not acting as a proxy, like AdSubtract or Proxomitron.

brotherS · « **Reply #10 on:** March 24, 2006, 07:44 AM »

[...]
I used to use Firefox' AdBlock extension, and so I was skeptical at first - but now I'm really happy that I switched: AdBlock really seems to have a memory leak, since I'm now having no more memory issues with Firefox! It's also great that it works for every browser!
[...]
-brotherS (March 23, 2006, 04:55 AM)

I felt I need to quote myself, it's so cool that Firefox finally stays below 100 MB RAM usage even when I run it for more than 24 hours!

(Yes, LOTS of tabs are opened all the time here)

brotherS · « **Reply #11 on:** March 24, 2006, 08:08 AM »

it's not just that freer is not always better, but also: more powerful does not mean better.
you have to decide how much time you want to spend customizing and learning, tweaking, etc.
-mouser (March 23, 2006, 02:50 PM)

I believe more powerful IS better for just anyone, but ONLY if all those features are added in a user-friendly way. The average user should still be able to use a program, the pro user could then enable more options or head to the advanced settings.

kimmchii · « **Reply #12 on:** March 24, 2006, 08:32 AM »

brotherS, when you say adblock, do you mean adblock plus?

AdBlock Plus vs. AdBlock Normal?

brotherS · « **Reply #13 on:** March 24, 2006, 09:09 AM »

brotherS, when you say adblock, do you mean adblock plus?

AdBlock Plus vs. AdBlock Normal?
-kimmchii (March 24, 2006, 08:32 AM)

When I say AdBlock I mean AdBlock

--> http://adblock.mozdev.org/

I didn't test that "plus" version.

nontroppo · « **Reply #14 on:** March 24, 2006, 11:26 AM »

Though I don't use it, AdMuncher is really brilliant software. The developer coded it in assembler for a long time, commited to low resource usage and hugely optimised. It is quality through and through.

Proxomitron is great (I've used it for years), but it is NOT for "it just works" functionality; some filter sets are great but I think AdMuncher is better for newbies. I'd give my dad admuncher while I'd use proxomitron (though I look forward to regex and header mods, i need to check it out again). Sadly the author of proxomitron died and the code is now frozen in time - it still works great but there will be no more development (though see below).

This is a better web site for prox: http://www.proxomitron.info/index.html

Good forums: http://kyeu.info/proxo/forums/index.php

There is also an open-source clone of prox: http://proximodo.sourceforge.net/

And a "smarter" proxomitron type app: http://bfilter.sourceforge.net/

taichimaster · « **Reply #15 on:** March 24, 2006, 12:51 PM »

I don't think Admuncher comes with a default list. It just adds any application acessing Internet as "filter target".

-wr975 (March 24, 2006, 07:19 AM)

Yep, the "filter target" was what I was talking about. It's the default list of "known safe" programs, supplied by AdMuncher and is automatically updated. Of course, you could choose not to trust that default list and make up your own list etc (Options -> Filter Targets -> My filter targets).

About AdMuncher to allow Internet access... Could you test this behavior on your system?

I've Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall and Admuncher installed. AdMuncher is allowed to do "code injection" and Internet access.
Kerio still intercepts any process trying to access Internet (even those who try to get access via IE, like LeakTest or Google Video Player).

Yes, I have experienced this with Agnitum Outpost. If Admuncher is ON, it doesn't not notify me on port 80 access from the apps that are in the filter targets. If you don't believe that admunch.exe is issuing network requests on other processes' behalf, you can do a simple test by blocking port 80 access on "admunch.exe" and see if you could still access google.com through IE or Firefox. The interceptions that you saw from Kerio PFW, were they port 80 requests or on some other ports like 443, 8080 etc?

AdMuncher is not acting as a proxy, like AdSubtract or Proxomitron.

It's not a proxy in the sense that you don't have to manually edit your browser's proxy settings and pointing it to localhost. But it's still "acting" as a proxy of some sort since it's issuing network requests on other programs' behalf. There's a FAQ for it:

Q: Why does my firewall say Ad Muncher is making "server" and outbound connections?
A: This is just how Ad Muncher filters your browser's transfers; when your browser tries to connect to a web server, it is instead connected to the local Ad Muncher program (hence why it is creating a listening ("server") connection). Ad Muncher then connects out to the original target of the browser, which accounts for the outbound connections. These connections are perfectly normal and no cause for concern; the listening sockets are of no use to anyone except the programs on your computer trying to connect out.

wr975 · « **Reply #16 on:** March 24, 2006, 03:51 PM »

Hi,

I've just tried the leak test from http://www.majorgeek...ownload.php?det=2847 and it failed to connect. Kerio reported "leaktest" wanted to access the Internet (port 80). AdMucher running, "leaktest" in Filter Targets/Programs that made connections. I've also tried leaktest in stealth mode and renamed it to thunderbird.exe. Same result.

Perhaps you can try the same test on your system. It would be interesting to know if leaktest can connect with/without Admuncher running.

vegas · « **Reply #17 on:** March 29, 2006, 03:22 PM »

giving this a bump in hopes of an April discount as there are many people in the world that NEED this software

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** March 29, 2006, 03:29 PM »

a discount is coming, but i dont know if it will be in april - probably have to wait until may.

kimmchii · « **Reply #19 on:** March 29, 2006, 05:01 PM »

i didnt know this forum is affiliated with ad muncher, no wonder the opinions are bias.

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** March 29, 2006, 05:21 PM »

donationcoder.com has no affiliations with any software companies.

in fact we have a very strict policy that we accept NO commissions or affiliate payments or any kinds of compensations, unlike many websites.

the only thing we try to do is get dicounts for our members on software that is wanted here.

everyone on this forum has different favorite programs, and we encourage everyone to talk about their favorites.

we also try to be a friendly place where authors can come to chat a little. not advertise their software but talk about it with people here who like it. and there are quite a few freeware and shareware authors who talk here. the only thing we do ask is that if you are somehow connected to a company you need to say it clearly when you post.

in short, we have tried to make this forum a welcome place for people to talk about their favorite programs, and a place with authors of good programs can reach their users. we always try to find freeware alternatives to every program, both in our reviews and in our posts.

i want to repeat - it is our strict and unbending policy that this site shall have no arrangement with any company which would have us benefiting from the sales of their program, or even the appearance of benefits from the sale of their program. period.

brotherS · « **Reply #21 on:** March 30, 2006, 01:15 AM »

i didnt know this forum is affiliated with ad muncher, no wonder the opinions are bias.
-kimmchii (March 29, 2006, 05:01 PM)

Huh?

Like mouser said, that's wrong - but why did/do you think so?

kimmchii · « **Reply #22 on:** March 30, 2006, 02:11 AM »

mouser has explained it, thank you.
just a misunderstanding.

Josh · « **Reply #23 on:** July 13, 2006, 09:03 PM »

Just wanted to give everyone this hint for ad muncher to display some of its capabilities. This little section allows you to add a "Download Video" link to every youtube page so you can save each video you want. Just an example

This post has been updated on 14/07/2006 to allow it to work with the new Youtube.

Under My Filters

[Select]
function y(swf_id){var i= swf_id.indexOf('=');var videoID = '';for(var no=1;no<swf_id.length-21;no++){videoID+=swf_id.charAt(i+no);}document.getElementById('yt_download').innerHTML='<a href=http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=' + videoID + '>Download Video</a>';}
- Add javascript to all pages

Under Tools >Replace Text

Match Text
[Select]
*

Replace Text
[Select]
<div id="yt_download"></div>

Match Text
[Select]
ord=math.random()*10000000000000000 + 3;

Replace Text
[Select]
y(fo.getAttribute('swf'));

Now, when you visit any Youtube video page, a "Download Video" link appears above the video's title. Since Youtube stores all it's files as flash videos (.FLV), simply rename them as filename.flv .

This is only my first attempt at writing a custom filter and it's probably a rather amateur way to implement it, especially the replacement text.

Idea obtained from:
http://www.tian.cc/2...youtube-updated.html
http://www.tian.cc/2...os-from-youtube.html
-weeguy

app103 · « **Reply #24 on:** July 13, 2006, 10:36 PM »

Ad Muncher does not block AOL's Rainman based ads. Nothing I have found can block these ads...except TPA Ad Buster.

Now this is only for AOL users that use the normal AOL software. Not for anybody else.

This removes the ads you see in chatrooms, on your mailbox, and on the file transfers window, by default. All the rest you just right click the ad and you'll never see an ad in that spot on that window again.

TPA has removed all links to this from their site, but the page to get it is still there. (they had a dispute with AOL over this)

Best of all...it's free!

You can use this alongside Ad Muncher, and never see another ad again,anywhere, if you are an AOL user.

I am not sure if this works for AOL versions 9.0 or 9.0SE, but an older version from 5.0 seemed to work with my 8.0, so you never know. Give it a try.

This is no longer being developed and who knows how much longer the webpage will be there, so if you want it, get it now...and let your AOL using friends know about it, too.

Before TPA Ad Buster:

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/7355/emailad4bw.jpg

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

After TPA Ad Buster:

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/1746/adgone5lv.jpg

Ad Muncher: keeps the brain intact while surfing the Net - beats AdBlock!

The only ad it doesn't seem to be able to get rid of is that stupid extra tab that shows up every once in awhile on the mailbox. But I guess I can live with that.