The last day of summer is always a bitter moment. To cheer you up, we release new Adguard for Windows version today. Find out about the biggest changes and new additions in this article.

Briefly: Stealth Mode got new useful options, userscripts work better now, ad blocking became more advanced and our network drivers - more stable. All the details are below.

Stealth Mode

[Added] "Self destructing cookies" option in Stealth Mode #678

Previously Stealth Mode module provided only the option to completely block third-party cookies. Now you will not only have an ability to differ first- and third-party cookies, but also the ability to set the exact time which cookies will be kept alive for. Important note: you can still block cookies alltogether, just set the keep-alive time to '0'.

[Added] Added an option to block "Browser location API" #139,

[Added] Added an option to block "Browser notifications API" #1121

Normally browsers may detect your location and use this information to prioritize specific search results or make other various suggestions based on it. With browser location API blocked this will be impossible.
Blocking browser notifications API feature works somewhat similar, but rather prevents browser from showing things like news or social media frames that pop-up in the corner of your browser.

Userscripts

[Improved] Content injection algorithm #1099

We completely redesigned content injection algorithm. First and foremost, this should solve issues with scripts that start when the page opens, resolve some of the known conflicts (AdsBypasser, YouTube+), and also optimize usage of scripts and ad blocker styles. Overall, a technical, but very important change.

[Added] Userscripts handling #1172

We adopted a new way of handling user.js (userscript) files. Now Adguard will automatically detect when user.js file was processed. If it is a valid userscript, Adguard will open a dialog window, offering user to install it. Of course, this setting will be optional and possible to turn off through settings.

UI

[Added] Hebrew localization, Dutch localization #1076, #1063

We continue to make Adguard more easily accessible for users all over the world. This time we add two more new localizations and fix some mistakes in already existing ones.

Networking

[Improved] Network SDK was updated #1179

In reality, this implies many various fixes that concern our network drivers. It would be hard to list them all here, and most of them are rather technical anyway. For example, the WFP driver - Windows Defender compatibility issue was addressed.

Ad Blocking

[Added] Support for extended selectors #1225

This is a technical term, but what hides behind it? With extended selectors support, we can much more easily create some rules that were very, very hard to create earlier. Notably, this concerns rules required to block such things as 'Sponsored posts' on Facebook.

[Added] Extended CSS support https://github.com/AdguardTeam/ExtendedCss

This is a very important addition in terms of future (and present) possibilities that it opens for ad blocking. Extended CSS is a module for applying CSS styles with extended selection properties. Basically, it means that we will be able to select and, therefore, block some elements that we would not be able to block otherwise. Currently we support following pseudo-classes: -ext-has (:has), -ext-contains (:contains), -ext-matches-css (:matches-css).

Other

Dozens of minor fixes and improvements. It is impossible to list them all without turning this article into a mess, so if you are interested, check our GitHub page.

Hope you like the fresh Adguard for Windows version! This time it took us much more effort than we thought it would so, hopefully, it wasn't in vain. Share your impressions in the comment section!