In late December we posted a recap of 2018 from AdGuard's point of view. But the year didn't happen in a vacuum; we are all in this together — ad blocker developers, ad blocker users, and advertisers. So anything that happens in the "world of ad blocking" concerns both us and you, the users. Let's look back at the most noteworthy events in the industry, assess their impact, and try to make some predictions for the next year.
You might have already heard about this. Google is going to change Chrome's extension platform. The proposed change in its current state will cripple or even effectively kill a lot of extensions, and it will significantly reduce the capabilities of ad blockers including AdGuard Chrome extension.
Only few days left before the next year dawns on us, and traditionally this is the best time to draw a line, look back and recall what was done in the last 12 months (and what was not). Of course, we won't go over every single update for every AdGuard product, but instead let's have a look at the most important milestones, without concern for chronological order.
As many of you probably know, AdGuard provides a lot of ways to block ads in form of various apps and browser extensions. Some even heard about AdGuard DNS, a way to block ads without installing anything on your device. And today we are announcing the official release of a completely new product — AdGuard Home, which carries a lot of cool new stuff with it.
We have detected an attack towards AdGuard servers. The most important thing is: AdGuard servers were not compromised. Malefactors used existing databases of email/password pairs previously leaked by different companies. We believe that attackers were able to access some of the accounts, but only few of them which owners used the same compromised email/password pair. If you are not one of them, your personal data was not leaked. We made a desicion to reset all users' passwords anyway, mostly as a preventive measure.
