Just a few days ago, Apple announced that they "have never allowed apps on the App Store that are designed to interfere with the performance or capabilities of other apps". In this article, I'll explain the current state of things and - the show must go on! - tell about the new version.
To be precise, the policy itself is not-so-new, at least, according to Apple, it was enacted a long time ago, they just suddenly decided to enforce it only now. Anyway, from now on all ad blockers, save for Safari content blockers, will be in constant danger of being kicked out of the AppStore, and will not be allowed to get updated. Adguard Pro in its past form, without question, is an ad blocker and would have shared the fate of others, hadn't we taken some measures.
The new Adguard version will be released on Monday. A lot will change there, I'll describe below everything you need to know.
Sadly, the System-wide ad blocking had to go. It was made clear to us that no such thing will get through the review process anymore. The good news is, custom DNS settings functionality is here to stay. It doesn't violate Apple's police per se, so there's that. We had to remove Adguard DNS and Adguard Family protection modes from the default setups, though - having that said, those who already had one of these modes selected will keep it as their DNS server of choice after the update. All other will have to manually enter the respective DNS addresses in order to use Adguard DNS.
We understand that if you have already purchased Adguard Pro, you had essentially paid for one app and will have a different app after the update. We are not happy with this turn of events either, but we will do everything in our power to mitigate the damage and offer you the best options we can. So what are they?
Nothing will be automatically updated without your permission anymore.
94.140.14.14, 94.140.15.15 - for Adguard DNS
94.140.14.15, 94.140.15.16 - for Adguard Family protection
You should hear back from Apple within a few days to a week.
Considering all of the above, it is easy to forget about the actual new version that is being released!
[Added] New 'Tunnel mode' setting #404
We decided to introduce this setting as a response to some cases of iOS bypassing the Adguard (due to bad connectivity). What does this mean in practice? The new setting lets you choose between two modes: split-tunnel and full-tunnel. While in split-tunnel mode (the default one), Adguard will be compatible with some other VPN apps (full list here) but can be bypassed by the system. On the contrary, in full-tunnel mode, you can't run other VPN apps alongside Adguard, but iOS won't be able to bypass it, regardless of the connection quality.
As you can see, many minor fixes and small UI changes here.
The article has definitely ended up much bigger than we planned it to be. We hope you'll stay with us because we already have so many plans for the future, so many directions to take. The app will become better than it used to be, you can have our word for that :)
As always, we are happy to hear your opinion - just leave us a message in the comments section below.
Adguard browser extensions are especially popular among users — they are being used both in integration mode with Adguard desktop apps and as a standalone solution. Today we are happy to announce the release of a new version of Adguard Browser extension!
How does an ad blocker work? What does the quality of blocking depend on? How do some ads get past it? What differentiates ad blockers from one another?
Such questions are not just a matter of curiosity. Knowing the answers can help one select and use a blocker more efficiently.