MikroTik is a well-known network equipment manufacturer, providing modern and secure hardware and RouterOS-based solutions used by ISPs, businesses, and enthusiasts worldwide. As self-hosted and network-level protection tools continue to grow in popularity, more users are deploying solutions like AdGuard Home directly on routers.

AdGuard Home fits naturally into this ecosystem. It’s a free, open-source DNS server that blocks ads, trackers, phishing, and malware across all devices connected to a network (without requiring apps or browser extensions). With its privacy-first, self-hosted approach, it’s especially well suited for advanced users seeking reliable, router-level DNS protection. Now, as part of the Made for MikroTik (MFM) program, it’s even easier to deploy AdGuard Home on RouterOS v7 devices that support containers.

This milestone further strengthens AdGuard’s presence in the router ecosystem, where privacy protection, safer browsing, and value-added network services are becoming increasingly important.

Why this matters

Running AdGuard Home on MikroTik routers has already been a popular setup among advanced users. Thanks to RouterOS container support, users can deploy AdGuard Home directly on their devices and manage network-level filtering in one place.

AdGuard Home provides:

• Network-wide ad and tracker blocking
• Protection from phishing and malware domains
• Parental control and service blocking
• Full control over DNS filtering and logs

All of this works at the DNS level, meaning every device connected to the network benefits automatically.

A step forward for open, user-controlled networking

Being featured in the MFM software catalogue is another step toward making privacy tools more accessible in the networking space. We believe users should have full control over their traffic — and integrations like this help bring powerful, open solutions closer to where they matter most: the network itself.

We're excited to see AdGuard Home join the Made for MikroTik program. MikroTik users value control, performance, and flexibility, and AdGuard Home is a natural fit for that audience. We believe this will make powerful network-wide privacy and security protection more accessible to MikroTik users worldwide

– Andrey Meshkov, CTO and Founder of AdGuard

👉 Check out AdGuard Home in the MikroTik catalogue
👉 Check the installation instructions

Custom blocklists

Finally the most requested feature in AdGuard DNS history is here — meet custom blocklists! Previously, you could rely on built-in filter lists or create user rules. Now, you can add custom blocklists via URL and adjust filtering precisely to your preferences.

How to add a custom blocklist

1. Open your Dashboard and click Servers in the left-hand menu.
2. Select My server → Blocklists.
3. In the Custom section, click Add custom blocklist.
4. Enter a name for the blocklist, its URL, and an optional description, then click Add.

Each subscription plan has a limit on the total number of filtering rules: Personal — 1K, Team — 5K, Enterprise — 100K. These limits are conservative for now, but we’re considering raising them.

This limitation is in place because blocklists are downloaded to DNS servers, and allowing unlimited blocklist sizes could lead to server overload, potentially causing performance issues.

Accessibility improvements

We’ve also made accessibility improvements across Private AdGuard DNS. All settings pages are now fully compatible with screen readers, making it easier for users with visual impairments to navigate and configure their DNS settings without errors.

These updates might not be flashy, but they’re important — and we want to hear what you think. Share your thoughts on GitHub or via social media.

Enforced DNS protection on managed iOS devices

Starting with this release, AdGuard DNS for iOS ensures that DNS policies on managed iPhones and iPads can’t be bypassed, giving IT administrators tighter control over how DNS filtering is applied across devices.

Now it’s possible to enforce organization-wide DNS rules, protect employees from unwanted content, and maintain compliance — all without sacrificing ease of deployment.

More information about MDM (Mobile Device Management) and instructions on how to configure devices to always use AdGuard DNS are available in our Knowledge base.

Launch at system startup on Android

AdGuard DNS for Android now starts automatically after your device reboots, so your protection will always stay active — even if you forget to open the app. It’s a small change that makes a big difference in everyday use, keeping connections safe and filtering consistent from the moment your phone turns on.

A look that fits your style

With the new App theme option, AdGuard DNS can now match your device’s system theme or switch between light and dark modes manually. Whether you prefer a bright interface or something easier on the eyes, you can make the app feel right at home on your device.

Better performance, smoother experience

We’ve improved overall stability and performance across both iOS and Android, making the app more predictable and reliable. Connections should feel faster, and DNS protection more consistent in a variety of scenarios.

What’s next

We’re committed to making AdGuard DNS even better — building tools that give both individual users and organizations more control and transparency. If you have suggestions or ideas for what should come next, share them with us on GitHub or social media.

Upd. This promotion is over. If you didn’t get a chance to buy AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN or AdGuard DNS at a discount, don’t worry — we often run other promotions. Not to miss the next one, subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll keep you in the loop!

Protecting your privacy and getting to the ad-free Web can be a challenging discipline. Just like an athlete needs the best gear to succeed, you need the right tools to glide through the Web without any hurdles. To help you out, we’re offering special prices on AdGuard products through February 10. Take advantage of these discounts to stay protected no matter what the Web throws at you!

Getting Ad Blocker is a winning strategy

AdGuard Ad Blocker is your first line of defense against ads and trackers. It removes annoying banners, popups, and video ads, so you can focus on what really matters when you’re online.

Lifetime licenses are 40% off, 1-year licenses are 30% off. Already have a license? You can upgrade it to cover more devices or extend it in your AdGuard account.

Skating freely through Web with VPN

AdGuard VPN lets you break through digital barriers — watch your favorite shows and live streams, find lower prices, and protect your connection in public Wi-Fi from hackers.

The most advantageous plan is the 2-year subscription, which is 80% off right now. You can extend your existing subscription at a discount — it’s cheaper than auto-renewal. Simply purchase a new subscription using the same email address.

Defending your home with DNS

AdGuard DNS acts as a protective shield for your devices, blocking malicious websites and unwanted content. Everything at your home that connects to the Internet will stay safe.

The Personal and Team plans are 55% off. If you’re already using AdGuard DNS, now’s the perfect time to extend your subscription — it’ll cost less than auto-renewal.

Securing your inbox with AdGuard Mail

AdGuard Mail is the perfect tool for receiving emails without sharing your personal address. With AdGuard Mail, you’ll get temporary addresses and aliases that you can use instead of your personal email on any service. This way, you can receive promo emails, newsletters, and anything else you want, while keeping your personal address away from prying eyes.

Since the product is new, you can join early and get a subscription for less than half the price.

2025 was a big year for us. We launched four (well, three actually, but it feels like four — more on it later) brand-new products, and we’re not stopping there — the AdGuard lineup is still growing. We updated all our long-time favorite products to make them even better, and welcomed guests to our hometown of Limassol for a brand-new Ad-Filtering Dev Summit. We also wrote plenty of insightful articles for you — and so much more.

So get comfortable. This is AdGuard’s year recap ✨

New products

As always, let’s kick the recap off with the most exciting news: new AdGuard products! We always strive to move forward, to not just improve our existing software, but also to broaden our product line. This year, the AdGuard product family welcomes quite a few newcomers: AdGuard Ad Blocker for Linux, AdGuard Mini for Mac, AdGuard DNS mobile app, and AdGuard Mail!

Linux users don’t like ads, too!

Last year, we released AdGuard VPN CLI — a command-line interface to run AdGuard VPN on Linux. So naturally we had to take the next step and protect our Linux users from ads, too. And we did! AdGuard v1.0 for Linux also runs in the command line and offers a wide range of tools to fight back against ads and trackers.

If you have experience with AdGuard ad blocking apps for other platforms, you’ll find a lot of the features of AdGuard for Linux familiar: app filtering, app exclusions, custom user rules and custom filters, differential filter updates. These are all essential tools for efficient ad blocking and tracker protection, and they are all available at your fingertips now. Try it out!

Mini in its name, maximum protection

AdGuard Mini for Mac is our new app to block ads in Safari browser. It is technically a new product, but it is a direct successor to AdGuard for Safari — if you’ve been using the latter, the app will update automatically (or has done so already). But why the new name? First of all, we introduced several new features: real-time filter updates, so you would always have the latest filters at your disposal, and a new advanced tool called AdGuard Extra to deal with the more stubborn ads that regular filters couldn’t normally block. It felt like a big enough improvement to justify the rebranding.

There was another reason — we wanted to emphasize that this product is a lighter version of its bigger brother, AdGuard for Mac app. While AdGuard for Mac has a larger arsenal and offers system-wide filtering, AdGuard Mini is a perfectly valid choice for many users who want to protect their Safari browser first and foremost.

DNS protection on the go

This new product is supplementary to AdGuard DNS. AdGuard DNS mobile app serves as a quick and easy way to configure AdGuard DNS on your mobile device and to manage protection on the fly.

It is lightweight, trivially easy to set up, and helps you to enable and disable protection, select the preferred protocol, and switch to the desired DNS server in seconds. A great choice for anyone looking for an all-round protection for their Android or iOS device.

Powering up your email

Technically, AdGuard Mail isn’t a new product — we even wrote about it in the previous year’s recap. But it didn’t feel right to just ignore a huge milestone like the release of the version 1.0. It introduced many must-have features like email replies, multiple alias domains, and reply stats, so we’d say it deserves a place in the ‘new products’ section of the recap.

Over this year, we’ve updated AdGuard Mail a few more times, no least thanks to your feedback. Try out AdGuard Mail for yourself to see what cool new features the latest version, v1.3, has to offer today, or check out the version history if you want to know everything about even the smallest of changes.

Block around the clock

With AdGuard Ad Blocker, we always strive to block more and better — within reason, of course. There are many AdGuard products for various platforms, and all of them received updates, often more than one. It won’t be possible to talk about all of them within this recap, so we’ll have to draw a line somewhere. For every product, we will arbitrarily choose one most prominent change and highlight it. The more inquisitive readers will find other big changes listed under the dropdown, and for the true changelog detectives we will link each product’s version history.

AdGuard for Windows

Our Windows devs have been quite busy this year and churned out a number of updates. So many banger features to choose from, but ultimately we stopped our choice on this one:

Interactive blocking pages. Previously, these pages felt like roadblocks — now they’re more like intersections where you have options: return to the previous page, learn more about the blocking, report a false positive, and for the most daring — proceed to the website anyway.

And we saved the best for last! We’ve released the beta version of AdGuard for Windows v8.0! Faster startup, more reliable filtering, quiet background performance, improvements to Statistics, Extensions (previously Userscripts), and App Management modules — it’s all in there. If you can’t wait for the official release, definitely give it a go!

If you want a more comprehensive and granular list of changes, visit the version history page.

AdGuard for Mac

For AdGuard for Mac, it was a slower year in comparison, so no singling out of any one particular change here. AdGuard for Mac now features the same interactive blocking pages that you could see in AdGuard for Windows. We added support for post-quantum cryptography, meaning that if the filtered app or browser uses the latest encryption methods, AdGuard will do the same. This way even a quantum computer won’t be able to decrypt your traffic! We won’t forget the added support for three new AI-powered browsers: ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity Comet, and Dia.

Aside from that, most of the changes were under the hood and impacted the performance, stability, and compatibility (all in a positive way, of course). Again, you can find all the changelogs on the version history page.

AdGuard for iOS

AdGuard for iOS had quite a big update on December 30, 2024 — literally the last update of the previous year among all the AdGuard products! It was so late it didn’t even get to the last year’s recap, so we’d say it is an honorary 2025 update and should be included here. With that in mind, what was new for AdGuard for iOS in 2025?

Major improvement to filter update speed. Major here starts with a capital ‘M’: we’re talking 30 times faster than it used to be. The updates that used to take 10-30 seconds now take only one or two, or sometimes even less. It sounds like magic, but it’s real — here’s some proof if you don’t believe us.

You can find out more about AdGuard for iOS changes from the version history.

AdGuard for Android

On the way to v5.0 (we promise, it’s coming!) our Android team released a number of big updates. I know, we’re not even through the ad blocker products, but I am going to break my own rule and highlight two changes here (but keep it short):

Landscape mode. This was one of the most requested features for quite some time, and we finally delivered. Now using AdGuard on a tablet is much more convenient.

Native support for userstyles. The feature that has been available in our Windows and Mac products now finds its way onto Android! Userstyles are similar to userscripts, but they only focus on changing the appearance of websites, without getting into their code.

Find out even more about new features in AdGuard for Android by visiting the version history page.

AdGuard Browser Extension

The changelog for AdGuard Browser Extension this year was, perhaps, the most busy-looking among all products. However, large chunks of it are various under-the-hood improvements and minor fixes. Still, there were a few big things worthy of a highlight, and I chose this one:

Custom filters in the MV3 extension. We had to give this feature a break after our migration to MV3 because of API limitations, but now it’s back, and it’s just as good as it used to be.

As usual, the complete changelog is available on the version history page for the more curious readers.

One more cool thing we’d like to mention about AdGuard Browser Extension before we move on: it is now featured in Edge for Android! It even was among the very first ad blockers to get into the Edge for Android extensions store. So if you are an Edge desktop user and rock an AdGuard Browser Extension there, you might want to try it out on Android as well.

Server at the end of the tunnel

Moving on to AdGuard VPN! Before we go over all the new exciting features product by product, let’s talk about one major overlapping change: all AdGuard VPN apps now support post-quantum cryptography! This sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s quite real.

Quantum computers are on course to break current encryption methods as soon as in 2029, but it’s worse: hackers are already collecting encrypted data, planning to decrypt it later when quantum computers become more widely available. So we didn’t want to wait until quantum computing became widespread and took action now. You will find the option to enable post-quantum cryptography in Advanced settings of all AdGuard VPN apps — and our advice is to do so. The drop in performance is negligible, and it's a more than fair trade-off for significantly improved security that could save you a lot of headache in the future.

And now back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

AdGuard VPN desktop apps

Some of the major new features in our apps for Mac and Windows are, in fact, quite similar, so we’ll cover them together. Let’s start with the biggest one:

Dynamic VPN protocol selection. If you’re not quite sure if HTTP/2 or QUIC protocol is better, or you don’t want to waste time switching it back and forth time and again, just use the Auto-select option. It will automatically pick whichever protocol is faster and more stable under the current conditions.

You can find more details about the changelog on the version history page: AdGuard VPN for Windows and AdGuard VPN for Mac.

AdGuard VPN mobile apps

Similarly to the desktop apps, we’ll cover AdGuard VPN for iOS and AdGuard VPN for Android together. So what’s new in the mobile department?

Saved locations. Another change that we made to the desktop apps at the tail end of the last year and that finally made its way to the mobile apps in 2025. This is a must-have quality-of-life feature that you need to try once to immediately realize just how handy it is in everyday use.

By the way, AdGuard VPN for Android has passed an independent security review and received a verification badge on Google Play! It guarantees that the app doesn’t share any data with third-parties, encrypts data in transit, and that you can request your data to be deleted.

Visit the version history page for more information on the changes we made to AdGuard VPN for Android and AdGuard VPN for iOS.

AdGuard VPN browser extension

Some of the changes that AdGuard VPN browser extension has undergone we’ve already mentioned when talking about other platforms: saved locations, web-based authorization. Let’s stop by the ones unique to it:

New Stats section. It’s a simple way to keep track of how much data passes through your VPN connection. Note that all statistics are stored locally on your device and can be disabled if you don’t need them. This feature is part of AdGuard VPN Unlimited and is available to all users on the paid plan.

And to top it off, similarly to AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN extension has become one the first VPN extensions available on Edge for Android!

It’s impossible to cover everything, so if you want more, check out the version history.

Three steps ahead of the ‘bad’ domains

It’s time to talk about AdGuard DNS! And what an eventful year it was for our DNS product. You already know about the mobile app, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. For starters, AdGuard DNS now also supports post-quantum cryptography! But honestly, that’s underselling it. It is the first DNS service to offer client-side post-quantum cryptography, and it is now on a very short list of early adopters of the technology — just behind Google and Cloudflare. Definitely read the article if you are interested in how this technology is implemented in AdGuard DNS. But the best part is: you can start using it right now. For that, you would need one of the Nightly builds of AdGuard Ad Blocker, but other than that, it is quite simple.

We can’t help but share with you our joy at the growing adoption of AdGuard DNS. First, back in January, ASUS, a leading router manufacturer, has integrated AdGuard DNS as a built-in feature in all of its Wi-Fi 7-compatible models. It truly felt like a milestone and a confirmation that our efforts to improve AdGuard DNS and make the Internet safer for everyone pay off.

How about another feel-good story about AdGuard DNS? In October, one of the Japanese schools officially adopted AdGuard DNS, launching it across all teacher devices and preparing to roll it out to student devices as well.

We are very proud to help make the learning experience for kids at the Shotoku Gakuen school safer and more enjoyable. We believe this is just the beginning of a broader movement — we’re already working toward a larger-scale adoption of AdGuard DNS across Japan (and possibly around the world!) in the coming years.

But what about AdGuard DNS itself? Has it become better? Did it get any new features? Yes it did, and quite a lot, but we have to highlight one, so here it goes:

Category-based service blocking. Now Parental control features more than 20 blocking categories (such as Adult content, Games, Alcohol & tobacco), so you have a more convenient way to control access.

Believe us when we say there are even more cool features, we physically can’t list them all here. Find out more about what AdGuard DNS has to offer by going to the version history page.

Beyond 1s and 0s

The backbone of AdGuard is its products — Ad Blocker, VPN, DNS, Mail. But we don’t just operate with code and release cycles. Over the last year, we’ve written a lot of articles on topics such as ad blocking, privacy, AI even. Some of them covered hot news happening in the world of ad blocking and privacy protection, others were based on our own research. Let’s take a minute or two to refresh in our memories some of them — the most newsworthy ones, but also the ones that maybe made us chuckle a bit or even go ‘Wait, what?’

The age of age verification laws

Throughout the year there wasn’t any shortage of news about this or that thing threatening people’s privacy. However, if we had to choose one topic that overshadowed the rest by its future implications for privacy, it would be age verification laws and adjacent legislative initiatives. And the news was coming from where we expected it the least. With GDPR and other privacy-protecting laws, we grew accustomed to Europe being the privacy stronghold of the world. But first UK has introduced mandatory age checks for porn sites and services like Reddit or Discord, and then Italy followed suit by passing the law that made age verification a requirement to visit any websites with adult content.

This is very concerning for privacy in and of itself. The more data websites and services collect, the easier it is for it to get leaked or breached. The perfect example is the very same Discord getting hacked for government-ID images used for age verification. But there is another, perhaps even more alarming consequence of this trend. Seeing how more and more people opt for VPNs to circumvent governmental bans, the lawmakers in UK and parts of the US started toying with the idea of restricting or outright banning VPNs altogether. These bills may not have become laws yet, but the fact that the idea itself is now on the table is scary. And it’s not like there are no real examples of VPNs getting under legal pressure. It wasn’t too long ago when France ordered a number of VPN services to block over 200 domains associated with piracy, officially labelling them as “technical intermediaries,” meaning they’re being treated more like broadcasters or platforms rather than neutral privacy tools.

Ad blockers under fire

It wasn’t just VPNs who felt pressure in the last year. Ad-blocking and, more generally, content-filtering tools faced their own share of problems. When covering this topic, it’s impossible to avoid talking about Manifest V3. This new Chrome’s API presented browser extension developers with a whole new, much harsher set of rules to follow, and the question we asked ourselves in the beginning of the year was: will ad-blocking extensions be able to adapt?. We started working on the MV3-compatible version of AdGuard Browser Extension early and managed to release it well in advance, in 2024. However, not all developers were able or willing to adapt to the new reality. The most prominent example was, of course, uBlock Origin, whose developer refused to change the code to satisfy the MV3 requirements, and so it was disabled in Chrome forever.

While Google switching to Manifest V3 did impede the functionality of ad blockers, the same API changes that caused these limitations helped improve users’ privacy. So there is a silver lining in this cloud. But while we successfully dealt with the challenge that MV3 presented, more are still looming, including those that pose a threat to the very idea of ad blocking itself. In August we were reminded of how fragile the entire concept of blocking ads is. German Federal Court of Justice has revived the case of Axel Springer vs. Adblock Plus. If you are not in the loop, Axel Springer is a German media company that tries to prove in court that ad blocking is illegal. Their legal battle against AdBlock Plus goes on for over 10 years now, and after the last case dismissal two years ago many had assumed that it was over and the good guys won. Turns out, it’s never over until it’s over. And while nothing is lost yet, the entire community is watching the situation very closely, as the consequences of the court making a ruling in favor of Axel Springer may be enormous.

But there are enough things to worry about even outside the court rooms. The International Advertising Bureau, an organization that sets standards and provides support for the online advertising industry, has introduced a new open-source initiative called Trusted Server that’s aimed, among other things, at bypassing ad blockers and minimizing the revenue loss that comes with them. It is highly unlikely that Trusted Server will prove to be some kind of an unbeatable challenge, but it is yet another reminder that there are plenty of those who would like to get rid of ad blockers altogether.

It’s not all doom and gloom

A very important skill in life is to be able to laugh even when the world throws at you some bad news or yet another challenge to overcome. Because if you can’t laugh at that, what else are you going to do when your $1800 smart fridge (using ‘smart’ very loosely here) shows you ads instead of weather or some stand-by picture? People online have been joking about soon-to-come Fridge+ subscriptions to disable pre-roll ads that would otherwise pop up before you can even open the door. Actually, forget the fridges, how about watching ads to be able to get a ration of toilet paper in a public restroom? Talk about crappy situations to find yourself in.

Speaking of not-so-good laughs. It certainly felt like a bad joke when we found out about websites who would break after trying to reinsert blocked ads, and then lie and blame the ad blockers for it. We have to admit, it takes some gall to mess up your own website trying to outsmart an ad blocker and then to blame the very same ad blocker after you fail.

To finish off this section, a couple of stories that are more amusing than outright funny. For example, we all were quite excited when out came an episode of Black Mirror about a person getting an ad-supported subscription to her brain chip. Her life-saving surgery came at a cheap price, but with a serious catch: the heroine becomes a literal vehicle for ad delivery, interrupting her own conversations to voice ads without even realizing it. The parallels with the ever more aggressive ad-supported subscription tiers of streaming services are uncanny. And finally, let’s give a shoutout to Stijn Spanhove, a Belgian programmer who single-handedly built an app for AR glasses that blocks ads in real life.

It may not achieve the desired effect yet, but we love the spirit!

AdGuard article medley

Every time we do a recap, there are a couple of articles left that we have to mention, but no matter how you twist and turn them, they don’t fit into any specific section. So let’s out them in the limelight here, in no particular order.

Google’s announced the end of Privacy Sandbox. This initiative, originally launched in 2019 and supposed to make online tracking for targeted advertising “more private,” has been struggling through the entirety of its existence. Many privacy experts claimed that it attempted to achieve unachievable, and judging by the eventual outcome, they may have been correct.

AdGuard’s investigation into the suspicious pressure on the Archive.today web snapshot archive. To be honest, we won’t be surprised if one day someone from Hollywood will decide to make a movie based on this story. It has everything: mystery, drama, blackmail, deception. Just read the article — it will be worth your time.

Ad blockers save more time and bandwidth than you think, says AdGuard research. We analyzed how ad blockers interact with over 100 news websites, and the results came out quite surprising: after we’d finished all the calculations, we were able to estimate that not using an ad blocker costs you about 80GB of data and 52 hours of time every year!

Celebrating the 50th issue of our privacy-focused newsletter AdGuardian. We first came up with the idea in 2023 when we decided that we wanted to bring our vision of the most important news and events from the worlds of ad blocking and privacy closer to you. This year marked both the 2-year anniversary and the 50th issue of AdGuardian, and we are already well on our way to the 100th!

To receive AdGuardian newsletter, make sure that Language for emails in your AdGuard account language is switched to English and that AdGuardian Privacy Guide is ticked off in your Opt-out preferences!

Ad-Filtering Dev Summit 2025

There is a tradition in the ad-blocking community: since 2018, once a year the developers of ad blockers and browsers, filter maintainers, and privacy researchers all gather together at the Ad-Filtering Dev Summit (or AFDS for short) to discuss hot topics and share thoughts on the current happenings. In October 2025, we (along with Ghostery and eyeo) organized the event on our home turf of Limassol, Cyprus, on the picturesque beachfront next to the warm Mediterranean sea.

And we’re happy to say that the event was a total success! We talked about everything, from new browsers functionalities and how they affect content filtering to avenues for employing AI in ad blocking, from automating filter rules creation to how we communicate complex privacy concepts to users.

The summit was not without speakers representing AdGuard!

Andrey Meshkov, Founder, Owner and CTO of AdGuard, scrutinized Apple’s new privacy-preserving system-wide URL filtering framework and how AdGuard has already implemented it.

Sofia Orlova, UX writer at AdGuard, outlined how AdGuard approaches UX writing and interface design to make privacy accessible.
Dávid Tóta, main developer of AGLint, and Elizaveta Egorova, developer, filter list maintainer, and AG Lint contributor, told us about the evolution of AGLint, a powerful tool designed specifically to assist the maintainers of filter lists.
Maxim Topciu, Browser Extensions Team Lead at AdGuard, explored how large language models (LLMs) can change our approach to blocking ads.

There were, of course, dozens of other speakers, raising all kinds of great topics and sometimes even sparking heated discussions with their talks! You can watch all of them in their entirety on YouTube.

Here’s to another wonderful summit next year!

Helping folk with TechTok

Just like that iOS update, TechTok is another example of a topic technically from 2024 that wasn’t mentioned in last year’s recap, and that’s why we will consider it a 2025 thing. So, what is TechTok? It’s a place where you ask us anything about technology — preferrably, within our areas of expertise like ad blocking or privacy protection, but honestly anything goes — and we answer the most interesting and popular questions. It’s been almost exactly a year and 11 TechTok issues since we started, so quite a few questions have been answered over that time. Here are some of our favorites:

What is a VPN tunnel and how does it work? This is where it all started, issue #1, and to this day one of the most commonly asked questions. If you use a VPN, or plan to, this is a must-read.
What is DNS? What is the difference between various DNS protocols? Another absolute classic of a question, which we cover in issue #4. Honestly, useful to have some idea about even if you’re not running any DNS-level protection (which you should!).
What is fingerprinting and how to minimize your digital footprint? This is issue #6, where we discuss everything fingerprinting-related. Privacy is essential, and knowing how to make sure your devices and software don’t spill more about yourself than necessary is very important.
Which one is better for your privacy — iOS or Android? With a question like this, there is always a risk of setting something on fire — the discussions may become that hot. But we tried our best to give an unbiased answer in issue #10.

Let’s hope that TechTok remains strong next year! You can help us by sending your questions:

Signing off for 2026

And that’s it — the entire year jammed into one article. You might have noticed that this recap turned out to be on the longer side. This year has genuinely been so, so tightly packed with new product releases, updates, researches, articles, and events that we can’t help but feel proud about what we have achieved. But the truth is, we wouldn’t be able to achieve this much without you! Thank you to everyone who helped translate our products, test apps, report bugs, improve filters. Without them, AdGuard would not be what it is. And we don’t say this lightly, we really mean it: we’re sending a few AdGuard goodies to the most active and prominent contributors of the year.

And with that let’s wave 2025 goodbye, and see you again in 2026 — we promise that it will be just as exciting and eventful, if not more! Happy New Year!

Behind everything we do, there is a global community of contributors who care about making the Internet safer and better. They translate our products, test apps, report bugs, improve filters, and help us solve hard problems. Without them, AdGuard would not be what it is.

We value every contribution, big or small. And every year, we take time to say thank you to the people who stood out the most. There are no rankings here and no comparisons. Just people whose efforts made a real difference.

Rising stars

These contributors joined us this year and have already made a strong impact:

Mickael81 helps us with French translations in an accurate and thoughtful way.

slepi4 contributes Belarusian translations, helping make AdGuard accessible to more people.

Alyaksandr Koshal is a careful and responsible proofreader. He works on Belarusian translations of our apps with great attention to detail.

jo2dan94 actively tests our apps, reports issues for us to fix, and takes part in discussions.

Long-time contributors, still going strong

Year after year, they keep showing up for AdGuard. Their long-term support and dedication mean more to us than we can say.

Görkem Emrah Güler is our true all-rounder. He helps with Turkish translations, filters, bug reports, and solution ideas — always reliable and always ready to help.

Tim Harman is a steady presence in the moderator community, dedicating his time to making AdGuard Home better.

NCAA makes it possible for Danish users to enjoy AdGuard in their own language. He localizes our products with great care, and we’re very lucky to have him with us.

Alfred Spijker localizes AdGuard apps and websites into Dutch. A  rock-solid contributor whose work is consistent and precise.

Yuki2718 is one of our most active bug reporters. He takes part in discussions, checks multiple repositories, and helps ensure everything works as expected.

Lukas Novotny is our beloved Czech proofreader, continuously supporting AdGuard with great care and attention.

Alessandro Visentin is already a familiar presence. His accurate and careful attention to Italian localization is always helpful.

A standout year for familiar faces

Some long-time contributors became especially active in 2025.

Pekari, who has been contributing Finnish translations to AdGuard for a long time, made a big leap this year and became one of our top helpers.

Morku supports AdGuard for Windows and helps us investigate complex technical issues.

kodiakhub was actively involved in testing and discussions, helping reproduce bugs and providing feedback that made fixing issues faster.

zvonimir made a strong comeback this year by returning with Croatian translations, helping our apps and websites look better and feel more local.

Thank you all! As a small sign of appreciation, we’ll be sending you a few AdGuard goodies.

We’ve contacted everyone on the list to arrange the delivery of AdGuard gifts. If you see your username above but haven’t received a message from us yet, please email us at translate@adguard.com.

Want to see your name on this list and receive our gifts? Join our contributor community — there is something to do for everyone:

Special thanks also go to hubak, Andy Kleinert, Sanr, BooBerry, jrusinek, XX-J, and green1052 for their great help this year. And to everyone who writes code, tests our software and reports bugs, translates our products, websites, and Knowledge bases, and truly cares — thank you for being part of AdGuard 💚

We’ve already explained how post-quantum cryptography works in an article on our VPN blog. Here, we’ll briefly recap the key concepts and explain how this technology is implemented in AdGuard DNS.

How post-quantum cryptography keeps your data safe

To keep DNS traffic secure, encryption must protect not only the data itself but also the way encryption keys are exchanged between the client and the server. While modern algorithms are extremely strong, future quantum computers will be able to break today’s key-exchange methods, making encrypted connections vulnerable.

Post-quantum cryptography addresses this risk by using algorithms designed to withstand quantum attacks. For DNS, this means stronger protection for client-server connections such as DoT, DoH, and DoQ, as well as for critical infrastructure components like DNSSEC — ensuring DNS privacy remains reliable in the long term.

How does it work?

AdGuard DNS uses a hybrid encryption method called X25519MLKEM768, the same approach used in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers.

• X25519 provides the standard encryption algorithm.
• ML-KEM768 adds post-quantum security.

What does this mean?

• This greatly increases protection because the combined key from both algorithms is virtually impossible to crack, even by quantum computers.
• Even if vulnerabilities are found in the post-quantum ML-KEM768 algorithm, the trusted X25519 algorithm will still provide security.

How to start using it

Starting with version 2.19, post-quantum cryptography is enabled by default in AdGuard DNS. However, to use this feature, you must connect to a DNS server through one of the AdGuard apps, as most OSes don’t support it natively. We’re still preparing the apps to be fully compatible with post-quantum cryptography, and currently, they are being tested. To try it now, you can download the latest Nightly builds — just keep in mind they may be unstable:

• AdGuard for Windows v8.0.0 Nightly 22
• AdGuard for Android v4.14 Nightly 23
• AdGuard for Mac v2.18.0.2090 Nightly

This feature isn’t available when you connect to a DNS server through one of AdGuard VPN apps yet, but it’s coming soon. Once it’s rolled out, it will be enabled automatically when you turn on post-quantum cryptography in the app.

To confirm that it’s active, visit our test page and scroll down to the AdGuard DNS section. The status PQC: enabled indicates that you’re fully protected.

We’d love to get your feedback and suggestions on GitHub. If you want, you can also reach us out on social media, we’re on multiple platforms.

Upd. This promotion is over. If you didn’t get a chance to buy AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN or AdGuard DNS at a discount, don’t worry — we often run other promotions. Not to miss the next one, subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll keep you in the loop!

Once you’ve seen websites and apps free from ads and all the other clutter, it’s hard to go back. We get it — that’s why we keep polishing everything we make: updating filters, tuning our VPN protocol, refining our DNS service, and creating new tools.

This season, we want your Internet to sparkle. Celebrate with holiday discounts on AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN, and AdGuard DNS — available through January 1.

✨ Sparkling-clean Web with AdGuard

Clear the clutter on any device — even Android TV and Linux. Share protection with family and friends and keep the sparkle going.

Lifetime licenses are 40% off, and 1-year licenses are 30% off. The discount applies to renewals and adding more devices in your AdGuard account. Or simply get a new license.

🚀 Travel at light speed with AdGuard VPN

Connect to 85+ locations worldwide — perfect for finding better prices while gift shopping. And once the shopping’s done, unwind with your favorite holiday shows. AdGuard VPN supports streaming on Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, BBC iPlayer, and more.

Get the best deal — a 2-year subscription at 80% off.

🏡 Home protection that shines — AdGuard DNS

Everything in your home that goes online — TVs, fridges, smart devices — can stay clean and safe with AdGuard DNS.

Choose a Personal plan to protect your entire household, or a Team plan for workspaces — both are 55% off during the holiday season.

✉️ A spotless inbox with AdGuard Mail

Meet our youngest service — AdGuard Mail. Use Temp mail for promo codes, giveaways, and one-off sign-ups, and keep your real address private with aliases that forward messages securely.

Since it’s new, you can join early and get a subscription for less than half the price.

Stay safe and shiny in the new year!

New possibilities with Managed App Configuration support

Managed App Configuration is a solution that allows IT administrators to configure the app remotely, without requiring any manual setup from the end user. This means that companies, schools, and other organizations can deploy AdGuard DNS at scale with all settings pre-set, ensuring a consistent and secure rollout across thousands of devices at once.

Here’s what you can do with the new feature:

• Easy connection setup: Users still go through the initial connection creation step, but the Setup ID field is pre-filled and cannot be modified.
• Protected settings: Once a managed configuration is applied, the DNS settings are locked to ensure consistency and security.
• Flexible device naming: Administrators can assign device names ahead of time, or allow users to enter them manually.

More control for organizations

With centrally managed configuration, Team and Enterprise users can ensure that every device connected to their DNS server follows a standardized setup, reducing potential configuration mistakes and simplifying support. Policies such as controlled settings can be enforced automatically, and the app clearly indicates to users that it is managed by their organization.

This centralized control makes deployment faster and more secure, giving companies peace of mind and a smoother experience for their employees.

We’re just getting started

This is the first of many updates, and we hope it brings real value. As we continue building the app, your feedback is especially important. Got ideas for improvements or fixes? Share them with us on GitHub or social media.

Available categories

You can choose from more than 20 blocking categories, including:

• Adult content: Websites and services containing explicit material or other 18+ content.
• Games: Websites, platforms, and services related to online gaming, game downloads, gaming communities, and in-browser games.
• Banking: Online services of financial institutions, including banking portals, credit-card services, loan providers, and investment platforms.
• Communication: Platforms for messaging, calling, collaboration, or social interaction, such as messengers, video-conferencing tools, and forums.

And many others!

Why it’s useful

Overall, category-based filtering makes Parental control easier to configure, more flexible, and more effective for both home and business use.

Families can set up protection much more easily: instead of hunting for individual domains to block, parents can simply choose a category and be confident that related content is filtered automatically. It offers peace of mind, saves time, and helps maintain a safer online environment for children.

Corporate users gain similar advantages. Category-based blocking allows administrators to enforce company policies consistently. It simplifies setup, reduces maintenance efforts, and helps ensure compliance with organizational security or productivity guidelines.

How to use it

1. On your Dashboard, go to Servers.
2. Select the desired server and click Parental control.
3. Go to Block websites by category.
4. Search for the categories you want to block or select them directly from the list.

You’re ready to go!

Share your experience

We’ve added category-based blocking to give you more flexibility in managing AdGuard DNS. Try it out and let us know if it meets your needs and what would make it even better. Share your thoughts on GitHub or via social media.

We apologize for the incident and would like to provide an explanation of what happened, how we resolved the issue, and the changes we’re implementing to prevent this from happening again.

What happened

AdGuard DNS resolvers require users’ filtering settings to be available locally before they can apply filters. At startup, the resolver loads a cached copy of all user data from a local file and then periodically queries the business‑logic service only for incremental changes since that snapshot. If the local cache is stale or corrupted, the resolver has to request a full dataset from the business‑logic service, which is slow and generates significantly higher load on both sides.

On November 25, a new version of AdGuard DNS was deployed with the goal of improving this mechanism. Due to a bug, instead of saving the complete user dataset into the local cache file, the service saved only the recently changed subset, which was often very small or even empty. As a result, many resolvers started up with either no user data or with only a tiny fraction of it, triggering repeated full synchronizations.

The first deployment attempt failed partway through due to a network issue, so about half of the fleet was running the new buggy version while the rest were still on the old one. When the deployment was retried, a large number of resolvers simultaneously discovered that their local caches were effectively empty or invalid and started full‑syncing user data. This caused a spike of traffic to the business‑logic service and a surge in resource usage on the DNS resolvers themselves.

Amsterdam: hardware mismatch and overload

In Amsterdam, the impact of this spike was amplified by a hardware mismatch. The cluster consisted of two groups of machines: some with 32 GiB of RAM and others with 64 GiB, while the AdGuard DNS configuration (connection limits, cache sizes, memory settings) had been tuned for the 64‑GiB profile.

Under the sudden load from full synchronizations and a storm of retrying DNS clients, the 32‑GiB machines ran out of usable memory and hit internal limits much sooner. They degraded sharply and effectively stopped serving traffic, which caused most of the Amsterdam DNS load to shift to the 64‑GiB machines. These remaining nodes then also entered an overloaded state: connection limits were reached, queues grew, and DNS queries started timing out or failing with SERVFAIL, even though upstream DNS resolvers were still healthy and answering quickly.

While working on the rollback of the buggy version and on cache repair, traffic from Amsterdam was partially rerouted to other European locations. This helped stabilize Amsterdam but introduced heavy additional load on Frankfurt and London.

Frankfurt and London: connection limits, pipelining, and latency

In Frankfurt and London, the underlying hardware was uniform, but the misconfigured limits and high concurrency still led to severe degradation. Two effects were especially important:

1. Connection limits and pipelining
   The resolver uses an internal limit on the number of active connections and supports request pipelining, allowing multiple concurrent queries per connection. With a pipeline depth of 5, each incoming connection could carry several in‑flight requests, each handled by separate goroutines and buffers. Under heavy load, this resulted in a large number of concurrent goroutines and live objects in memory, which increased heap size and put pressure on the Go garbage collector.

2. High latency and SERVFAIL despite healthy upstreams
   As memory pressure grew, garbage collection became more frequent and more expensive, increasing the time each DNS query spent inside the resolver. This led to a sharp rise in request duration and in the number of SERVFAIL responses, because client‑side and internal timeouts were reached before responses could be processed, even though upstream DNS servers were still responding quickly and successfully.

In Frankfurt specifically, CPU usage never appeared fully saturated at the system level, but GC activity and internal contention were enough to significantly increase tail latency. During this period, the cluster hit its connection limit and stayed at it: existing connections were held for longer than usual, while new clients struggled to establish new connections. Clients responded with retries, increasing load even further and keeping the connection limit saturated.

When the request pipeline depth was reduced from 5 to 1 in Frankfurt, the system recovered very quickly. With pipeline=1, each connection carried at most one in‑flight DNS query at a time, dramatically reducing the number of concurrent goroutines and live objects in memory per connection. This in turn reduced heap growth and GC pressure, allowing the resolver to complete requests faster, close connections in a timely manner, and free up connection slots. As a result, the connection limit was no longer constantly saturated, request duration dropped, and the rate of SERVFAIL responses fell back to normal levels.

Key problems: Memory, connlimit, and 32 vs 64 GiB nodes

An important factor in how different nodes behaved was the interaction between available RAM, Go’s garbage collector, and the connlimit setting. Сonnlimit controls the maximum amount of memory the Go runtime will use for managed heap before aggressively triggering garbage collection. On high‑RAM nodes, if connlimit is set too high, the runtime allows the heap to grow much larger before GC becomes aggressive.

On the 64‑GiB machines, the effective memory limit was higher, so under heavy concurrency and high pipelining, the resolver process accumulated a large heap with many goroutines and buffers. Once this heap reached the configured limit, the GC had to work very hard to keep memory usage under control, resulting in prolonged periods of high GC CPU utilization and more frequent pauses. This is a known worst‑case scenario for connlimit on high‑memory applications: memory is not exhausted, but CPU time is increasingly spent in GC, leading to higher latency and reduced throughput.

On the 32‑GiB machines, the same configuration and load caused the process to reach practical memory limits earlier. These nodes started failing sooner because their configuration (cache sizes, connection limits) had not been scaled down to match the smaller RAM footprint, but the 64‑GiB nodes eventually became bottlenecked by GC activity instead. In combination with high pipelining and high retry traffic, this created a feedback loop where GC pressure, connection saturation, and client retries reinforced each other.

Incident timeline

• 14:30 UTC: The first deployment of the new version begins. Due to a network issue, the deployment fails approximately an hour later, leaving about half of all servers running the new buggy version.

• 15:30–16:00 UTC: The second deployment attempt starts. Alerts are triggered for increased DNS error rates and server load. The investigation quickly identifies the bug in the caching logic that causes resolvers to operate with empty or incomplete local user data and to perform full synchronizations.

• 16:00–16:30 UTC: A decision is made to roll back the buggy version on all servers simultaneously. Under the combined load of full synchronizations and client retries, the Amsterdam cluster with mixed 32‑GiB/64‑GiB hardware becomes overloaded; 32‑GiB nodes effectively drop out first, pushing more traffic onto 64‑GiB nodes, which then also start failing. Traffic is partially rerouted from Amsterdam to other European locations, increasing load on Frankfurt and London.

• 16:30–17:30 UTC: Configuration changes are applied to reduce the effective connection concurrency and pipeline depth in Frankfurt and London, and to adjust limits to the actual hardware capacity. These changes gradually bring clusters back to a stable state. In parallel, corrupted cache files and user data snapshots are repaired to avoid further full synchronizations.

• 17:30–18:00 UTC: The rollback is completed, caches are restored to a consistent state, traffic distribution is normalized, and error rates return to baseline.

Why queries failed (SERVFAIL and high latency)

During the outage, users primarily saw DNS timeouts and SERVFAIL responses. It is important to stress that upstream DNS providers were operating normally and returning valid answers in a timely manner. The failures were caused by the resolver layer being unable to process and return responses before internal or client‑side timeouts expired.

Several factors contributed to this:

1. Saturated connection limits and high pipelining depth caused many in‑flight DNS queries to be queued or delayed.
2. Increased heap size and GC pressure led to longer response processing times and occasional pauses, especially on 64‑GiB nodes.
3. Clients and recursive resolvers retried failed queries, further increasing load and keeping the system close to its limits.

Follow‑up steps

To prevent similar incidents in the future, the following actions will be taken:

1. Code and testing improvements
   1. Add automated tests to verify that the full user dataset is correctly serialized into and restored from the local cache file, including detection of empty or truncated caches.
   2. Introduce integration tests that simulate resolver startup with an empty or corrupted cache under realistic load, ensuring that the system behaves gracefully and does not overwhelm business‑logic services.
2. Configuration and limit tuning
   1. Standardize server hardware profiles per location to avoid mixed clusters with significantly different RAM sizes, or explicitly maintain separate configurations per hardware class.
   2. Review and adjust connlimit, cache sizes, and connection limits for each standard node type so that both 32‑GiB and 64‑GiB nodes (or their future equivalents) operate within safe GC and memory envelopes.
   3. Reevaluate and lower pipelining depth where necessary to keep concurrency per connection at a level that does not produce excessive goroutine and heap growth under peak conditions.
   4. Reevaluate our approach to connection and goroutine limiting to allow for both reasonable limitations on resource consumption and decent throughput even after a connection break.
3. Monitoring and alerting
   1. Extend monitoring to track not only CPU and overall memory, but also Go heap size, GC time, GC cycles per second, and per‑cluster request latency distributions.
   2. Add dedicated alerts for sustained increases in SERVFAIL rate and request duration in the presence of healthy upstreams, to detect internal contention and GC‑related issues before they lead to a user‑visible outage.
4. Operational procedures
   1. Refine deployment and rollback procedures for DNS resolvers to avoid simultaneous cache invalidation across a large fraction of the fleet.
   2. Document and rehearse playbooks for quickly adjusting pipeline depth, connection limits, and connlimit during live incidents, based on the behavior observed in Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

Upd. This promotion is over. If you didn’t get a chance to buy AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN, or AdGuard DNS at a discount, don’t worry — we often run other promotions. Not to miss the next one, subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll keep you in the loop!

We won’t beat around the bush — you know what Black Friday means. Until December 5, we’re rolling out once-a-year discounts on AdGuard products: up to 50% off Ad Blocker, up to 65% off AdGuard DNS, and 85% off AdGuard VPN. As a cherry on top, you can grab an early-bird discount for AdGuard Mail.

These deals work for new purchases, upgrades, and renewals.

Browse better with AdGuard Ad Blocker

Say goodbye to intrusive ads, popups, and other distractions. With AdGuard, the Web becomes cleaner, faster, and quieter — just the way it should be.

Lifetime licenses are now 45% off, 1-year licenses are 50% off.

Already have a license? You can upgrade it to cover more devices or extend it in your AdGuard account.

Explore freely with AdGuard VPN

Prices differ from country to country — connect to AdGuard VPN to hunt for better deals. And when the shopping’s done, unwind with shows from other regions on your favorite streaming platform.

2-year subscriptions are now 85% off.

You can extend your existing subscription at a discount — it’s cheaper than auto-renewal. Simply purchase a new subscription using the same email address.

Stay in control with AdGuard DNS

AdGuard DNS is your reliable tool for keeping trackers at bay, blocking intrusive ads, and adding an extra layer of security to your browsing.

The Personal plan is now 65% off and the Team plan is 55% off.

If you’re already using AdGuard DNS, now’s the perfect time to extend your subscription — it’ll cost less than auto-renewal.

Keep your inbox private with AdGuard Mail

Meet our youngest service — AdGuard Mail. With it, you get Temp mail — a disposable inbox perfect for promo codes, giveaways, or any sign-ups you don’t fully trust. It also gives you aliases that forward messages to your real address, keeping it private.

Since it’s new, you can get in early and grab a subscription for less than half the price.

Black Friday specials are available through December 5.

Available for Android and iOS, this lightweight app makes it effortless to configure your mobile device to use AdGuard DNS servers. If you don’t need advanced AdGuard features but still want secure, privacy-friendly DNS, the AdGuard DNS mobile app is the simplest way to get it in just a few taps.

Who should try it

If you’re looking for DNS-level protection — blocking ads, trackers, and malicious websites — but don’t need the full range of features offered by AdGuard Ad Blocker or AdGuard VPN, this app is perfect for you.

If you ever want to go further, you can always explore AdGuard Ad Blocker and AdGuard VPN apps for advanced protection and more configuration options.

What’s inside

Easy setup

Instead of installing extra apps or going through complicated instructions, you just enter a single setup ID, provided in the dashboard, and you’re done — the device will be tied to your account. Even non-technical users can set it up in seconds.

Don't feel like typing? Just scan a QR code and the app will automatically connect your device to your account. This makes it easy to set up protection on your family’s or team’s devices.

You can find the setup ID and the QR code in your dashboard. On the Home tab, click Add new device and follow the instructions on the page.

Choose your protocol

The AdGuard DNS app supports all major DNS protocols, letting you pick the best one for your device and connection type.

Both Android and iOS users can choose a VPN-based mode for more flexibility (DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, or DNS-over-QUIC) — AdGuard DNS uses a VPN profile to route your requests to the selected DNS server. Exclusively on iOS, users have access to the native OS protocol (DNS-over-HTTPS or DNS-over-TLS).

To choose a protocol, go to Settings and tap Protocol in the General section. Select the one that suits you best.

Getting started

Ready to enable DNS protection? Here's a simple guide to get you started:

1. Go to your AdGuard DNS dashboard at adguard-dns.io/dashboard.
2. Click Add new device on the Home tab.
3. Select your device type and give it a name, then click Next.
4. Expand the Use AdGuard Apps section.

5. Under Use the AdGuard DNS app, choose one of these setup methods:

• Click Configure if you’re on the device you want to protect.
• Scan the QR code with the device you want to protect.
• Copy your Setup ID and paste it directly into the app.

6. Follow the in-app instructions to complete the setup.

When using a VPN-based protocol, you still need to allow creating a VPN profile before being fully protected. To do this, go to the app’s home page, click Enable, and follow the in-app instructions.

iOS users who prefer native DNS still need to go to Settings → General → VPN & Device Management → DNS and enable AdGuard DNS.

What’s coming next

This is version 1.0, just the beginning. We already have a roadmap full of improvements and new features, so you can expect regular updates with enhancements. And yes, we’re also working on a desktop version!

Ready to try?

If you’re as excited as we are to experience an easier way to set up your AdGuard DNS, now is the time to jump in.

Install it, try out, and let us know what you think. Every bit of feedback helps us make AdGuard better for everyone.

• Found any bugs? Want to request a feature? You can submit them directly to our GitHub repository.
• Want to share your opinion? Find us on our social media.

Thank you for being part of our community!

Archive.is was launched in 2012 by someone using the name Denis Petrov — though whether that’s their real identity remains unclear. The site lets users save “snapshots” of web pages by submitting URLs, which makes it a valuable tool for preserving content that might otherwise disappear. But because it can also be used to bypass paywalls, it’s long been a thorn in the side of many media organizations.

While the exact nature of the FBI investigation hasn’t been confirmed, it is speculated it can be related to copyright or CSAM (child sexual abuse material) dissemination issues. Altogether, the situation suggests growing pressure on whoever runs Archive.is, and on intermediaries that help make its service accessible. AdGuard DNS, as it turns out, may have just become one such pressure point.

How we got entangled

A few weeks ago, we were contacted by a representative of an organization called the Web Abuse Association Defense, a French group claiming to fight against child pornography. Their website is webabusedefense.com, and here is the archived version as of November 7.

They demanded that we block the domain archive.today (and its mirrors) in AdGuard DNS, alleging that the site’s admin had refused to remove illegal content since 2023. To be clear, Archive.today allows users to take “snapshots” of any webpages, including potentially illegal material. In such cases, it’s the site admin’s job to respond to complaints and promptly remove that content.

This struck us as strange — we’re not a hosting provider, and it seemed unusual for an infrastructure-level service like ours to be asked to take action like this.

Soon after, the situation escalated into what we could only describe as direct threats:

We won’t share all the screenshots here, but there were several similar messages.

We sought legal advice, and unfortunately discovered that French law, specifically Article 6-I-7 of the Loi pour la Confiance dans l'Économie Numérique (LCEN), might actually require us to respond and apply blocking measures, at least for French users.

That said, this whole situation shows just how inadequate this regulation is. Such decisions should be made by a court — a private company shouldn’t have to decide what counts as “illegal” content under threat of legal action.

Even so, the story didn’t quite add up. Since someone was trying to pressure us into taking action, we decided to contact the other side, Archive.today, directly.

We sent an email to Archive.today’s contact address and asked two simple questions:

1. Can they remove the illegal content from the URLs we were informed about?
2. Is it true that they refused to remove such content in the past, and had they been notified about it before?

They replied within a few hours. The response was straightforward: the illegal content would be removed (and we verified that it was), and they had never received any previous notifications about those URLs.

Moreover, they hinted that Archive.today had been targeted by a campaign of “serial” complaints, supposedly from French organizations, sent to various companies and institutions that could potentially harm the site. They even shared a link demonstrating a complaint similar to the one we had received.

At that point, things were looking increasingly odd, so we decided to dig deeper into the “complainant.”

The Web Abuse Association Defense website references several well-known organizations — Europol, OFAC, NCA — yet provides no details or evidence of any cooperation with them.

The association itself was registered in February–March 2025, around the same time its website appeared. There is very little public information about it. Interestingly, registering an association in France can apparently be done entirely online and does not require proof of identity.

The association is registered at an address used for mass company registration, which isn’t inherently problematic but it does indicate that the entire registration process could have been carried out online by a single person.

Its Twitter/X account appeared only recently — in August 2025. It has just four followers, and its feed consists of just a few reposts.

None of this proves anything by itself, but something still doesn’t add up. In their first email, the “head” of the association claimed that their correspondence with Archive.today started with a bailiff report from 2023. That timeline simply doesn’t fit.

We examined the so-called “bailiff reports” they had sent us as evidence. It’s important to note that these aren’t bailiff reports in the English sense — they’re “constat d’huissier sur Internet,” official records of online content such as webpages, posts, or videos. These particular reports were ordered online via the service called Qualijuris, and, based on the timestamps, most of them were also created in August 2025 — not 2023.

Only two of these bailiff reports were ordered in 2023 from a similar service. What’s interesting is that they weren’t ordered by WAAD. The name of the person who ordered these bailiff reports matches the name that appears in the correspondence shared with us by the Archive.today administrator — the same one he wrote about on X in 2024. In that case, the complaint appeared to come from a real lawyer — but someone had registered a domain with the lawyer’s surname, containing nothing but a redirect to the lawyer’s actual website, and did it on the same day the complaint was sent. The domain was used solely to send the emails and it is not active anymore. Interestingly, that email also invoked the LCEN law.

So what is the link between WAAD and that lawyer from before? Are these bailiff reports real and could it be that this is a case of impersonation of a real person? We don’t know yet, but we hope to discover the truth soon enough.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t dig any deeper about who exactly is behind WAAD. The domain webabusedefense.com is registered with name.com, but ownership information (including historical records) is hidden. They use ProtonMail for email, so that’s another dead end. The site itself is behind Cloudflare, making further tracing impossible.

What we have in the end

With everything said and done, here’s where things stand now:

1. The illegal content was promptly removed from Archive.today after we notified them.
2. The complaints against the site look extremely suspicious. In our case, they came from an organization that was only recently registered that seems deliberately set up to hide the identities of those behind it.
3. The sample complaint shared by Archive.today’s admin shows signs of impersonating a real person. We have contacted the person in question and are currently waiting for a reply.
4. In both our case and that other example, the recipients were pressured to act under the French LCEN law. However, that same law also provides penalties for false reports:

   Art. 6-I-4 LCEN:
   4. Any person who presents content or activity to the persons referred to in paragraph 2 as being illegal with the aim of having it removed or its dissemination stopped, when they know this information to be inaccurate, shall be punished by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of €15,000.

5. We believe there are indications of criminal behavior here that should be investigated by law enforcement. Therefore, we will file an official complaint with the French police, including all relevant details.
6. All this is unfolding amid reports of an FBI investigation into the owner of Archive.today. It seems that this investigation may be related to CSAM hosting. While we can’t confirm any connection between that case and ours, the timing is certainly suspicious.

Nov 14, 2025 UPD: We have updated the article with more information on the bailiff reports sent to us and the person who ordered them.

Nov 18, 2025 UPD: We learned that at least two reports were forged, and WebAbuseDefense’s official response still fails to reveal who is behind the association.

Secure integration with API keys

We’re improving the access system for the AdGuard DNS API by transitioning from using account credentials (username and password) to API keys for authentication.

What is the AdGuard DNS API?

The API allows you to manage AdGuard DNS settings without logging into the web interface, enabling you to control it through code or automation. You can, for example, add domains to the blocklists, enable or disable filters, get query statistics, or configure DNS for multiple devices. This is especially useful for integrations, scripts, or home automation systems.

Previously, API access required a login and password, which was not ideal. Passwords can end up in logs or unauthorized hands, which puts your account at risk.

API keys solve this problem. They can be created for specific tasks, used only for API access, and revoked or replaced quickly if necessary. This new approach offers a more secure and manageable way to provide access to the API, and it simplifies integrations with external services.

Customizable block pages

We’ve added the ability to show custom block pages for phishing sites or sites restricted by Parental control. Instead of the standard AdGuard DNS block page, you can now display your own custom page.

This is particularly useful for businesses, schools, or any organization using AdGuard DNS. If you need to brand the block page with your logo, contact details, or a custom message for users, this functionality allows you to do so.

To enable custom block pages, go to Parental control or Security settings, and under Respond to blocked domain, select Custom IP, and add the IP address of your custom page.

If you use AdGuard DNS for your business, share your thoughts with us. Should you have any ideas or suggestions for future features, tell us on GitHub.

Upd. This promotion is over. If you didn’t get a chance to buy AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN or AdGuard DNS at a discount, don’t worry — we often run other promotions. Not to miss the next one, subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll keep you in the loop!

The Internet is already scary enough, so this Halloween, we’re here to protect you, not frighten you! Until October 31, get AdGuard Ad Blocker, AdGuard VPN, or AdGuard DNS at a huge discount — and a chance to win one of five Golden Tickets: your pass to a secure, ad-free Internet.

Spooky-good discounts

For one week, enjoy savings on AdGuard licenses and subscriptions:

🎃 Up to 40% off AdGuard Ad Blocker licenses

🎃 80% off the AdGuard VPN 2-year subscription

🎃 55% off the AdGuard DNS Personal plan

Golden Tickets 🎟️

Among everyone who buys an AdGuard product during this promo, we’ll randomly select 5 winners of our Golden Tickets. They won’t take you to the Chocolate Factory, but to a safer, cleaner Internet — without ads, trackers, scam, or malware.

Each ticket unlocks a complete AdGuard bundle:

• 1-year AdGuard Ad Blocker license
• 1-year AdGuard VPN subscription
• 1-year Personal AdGuard DNS plan
• 1-year AdGuard Mail subscription

Winners will be announced right after the promo ends — here in this post, on our social media, and via email with all the details.

Happy (and safe) Halloween from all of us at AdGuard! 🎃👻

Update: We know the winners!

Using a randomizer, we selected five winners from all users who made a purchase during the sale — the lucky people who walked away with our Golden Tickets:

5682 eve******li@mail.ru

1295 al**************iy@gmail.com

11298 mi******21@gmail.com

12417 no****ja@gmail.com

16160 sv*********74@yandex.ru

We have already reached out to the winners via email. Check your inboxes!
Thank you to everyone who participated :green_heart:

Advertising: more than just annoyance, a real security threat

The motivation behind this initiative came from a real problem: teachers were frequently interrupted during lessons by distracting or even dangerous ads. Some of them were just annoying, like pre-roll video banners that would consume time that teachers could have dedicated to classroom activities. Others, however, were phishing attempts disguised as fake virus alerts, trying to lure users into clicking malicious links.

A pop-up window pretending to be the Windows Defender Security Center appeared on staff members' screens, trying to trick them into clicking on it.

This created a two-fold issue: a risk to cybersecurity and a disruption to the learning environment.

Yuichiro Tsuruoka, Director of Information Systems at Shotoku Gakuen, recognized this as a problem, and although he encouraged the staff to follow digital hygiene rules, he realized that relying solely on teachers always making the right choice is an unreasonable expectation.

“I think when those kinds of screens pop up, it’s quite common to be taken by surprise and click on them,” Tsuruoka said. “But fortunately, the faculty and staff at Shotoku Gakuen have always reached out to me first, so there hasn’t been any actual damage so far. We also provide staff-oriented training on how to recognize and avoid fraudulent sites. But there’s a limit to how much you can rely on human attention alone — and even a single mistake could lead to a serious problem. That’s why I felt it was necessary to have a dedicated system in place to block those threats.”

The consequences of a single mistake could’ve been indeed devastating. Schools handle a huge amount of personal information, including students’, and often rely on older authentication systems that aren’t exactly built with modern security threats in mind.

Reasons for AdGuard DNS adoption: clean interface, easy setup

That’s where AdGuard DNS came in. The school began piloting it on student devices in December 2024, first testing on a small scale, then launching it in 2025 across all teacher devices such as tablets and PCs.

iPad without AdGuard DNS installed (left) shows ads, but ads are hidden on the iPad with AdGuard DNS running on it (right)

Explaining the choice to go with AdGuard DNS as opposed to some other program or a different ad blocker, Tsuruoka said that it was important for him that AdGuard DNS is a comprehensive solution not limited to one browser. AdGuard DNS works on a DNS level, which means it can block unwanted ads, trackers, and malicious domains across all apps and browsers without relying on individual browser extensions or requiring complicated software installs. Another factor was the AdGuard DNS dashboard: it’s clean, straightforward, and makes it easy to see what’s being blocked and how often, without digging through a bunch of confusing data.

AdGuard DNS dashboard set to Japanese

As for setup, Tsuruoka said it was smooth and painless: “I didn’t have any particular trouble because I only had to scan the QR code.” Tsuruoka noted that while some might assume it’s tedious to set up each device one by one, adding a DNS configuration profile was “quick and easy.”

Tangible results: 12% decrease in junk web traffic

By filtering content before it even reaches the device, Shotoku Gakuen has been able to reduce risk and cut down on unnecessary background traffic. Overall, around 12% of all web traffic is being blocked, Tsuruoka said. This includes everything from display ads to tracking scripts to background app connections.

The school also found that the benefits extended to pedagogy itself. Previously, when teachers wanted to show students a web page during a lesson, they often took screenshots to avoid displaying inappropriate or distracting ads. Now, with ads no longer pulling all the attention onto themselves, teachers can be more flexible: they don’t have to prepare screenshots in advance and can simply guide students to the relevant web page directly.

Following the success with teacher devices, Shotoku Gakuen is now preparing to roll out AdGuard DNS to student devices as well. This time, however, they’re using a Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform to apply the DNS profiles. This ensures that even tech-savvy students can’t easily remove the protections, since MDM can lock certain settings and prevent users from deleting installed profiles.

It’s more than just one school or one software solution

The school’s approach highlights an important shift in how educational institutions think about digital infrastructure. Blocking ads isn’t just about aesthetics or speed. It’s about safeguarding the classroom, protecting users from threats, and keeping students focused on learning. As schools around the world struggle with slow networks, growing cyber threats, and the challenge of managing thousands of devices, Shotoku Gakuen’s decision to adopt AdGuard DNS shows what’s possible when schools embrace new tech.

We’re proud to say that Shotoku Gakuen is the first of what we expect will be many Japanese schools adopting AdGuard DNS to protect both teachers and students from the risks that come with online ads and tracking. We believe this is just the beginning of a broader movement, and a stepping stone toward large-scale adoption of AdGuard DNS across Japan in the coming years. We’re already working towards a more widespread adoption of AdGuard DNS in Japanese schools, and in the future, we hope to see more schools — not just in Japan, but around the world — adopt DNS-based solutions like this to boost security and cut down on digital clutter.

Ads started creeping into places they had no business being in. Not just on bargain TVs, but on high-end, flagship screens too. And then — as if that wasn’t enough — they showed up in the infotainment panels of cars. Some were in the form pop-up ads, hitting you in the face every time you stop at a light, as Jeep drivers could attest, although the company has later dismissed it as a glitch.

The trajectory’s been all downhill since. It's like we’re being slowly dragged into a nightmare where no screen, no product, no inch of space is safe from ads.

Over the past few years, we’ve been losing more and more control over our physical products. First came devices that brick themselves if you're behind on payments — yes, we’re talking about Ford’s self-repossessing cars (still just a concept… for now). The gradual loss of control has come together with the steady push into subscription models. That could’ve been fine if those subscriptions actually added something meaningful like new features, better service, more value. But instead, what we’re getting is manufacturers locking basic features behind a paywall, or worse, actively degrading the user experience unless you pay up.

A perfect example of this? Samsung’s latest move to push ads onto its Family Hub fridges, which start at $1,800 in the US.

This is not cool

The update rolled out quietly, almost sneakily. In mid-September, a Reddit user spotted a changelog flash on their fridge screen, and that’s when alarm bells started ringing.

Source: Android Authority

The notice that popped up on the poster’s Samsung fridge said that ads would be shown on the door display when it’s idle and set to Weather, Color, or Daily Board themes. If it’s set to Art and Gallery themes like showing photos or pictures the ads won’t appear.

At first, people weren’t even sure it was real. Even Android Authority questioned it, wondering if the changelog was meant for some other product entirely: “There were some doubts that the changelog wasn’t real or that it belonged to a different product.”

But no, it wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a glitch. And it definitely wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, no matter how badly we all wished it was.

According to the Fortune, Samsung for now says it will only display ads, and not collect data about how users interact with them, like whether you dismiss an ad or engage with it. But it’s hard not to see that as just step one. More data collection is likely right around the corner.

In a statement shared with Android Authority, Samsung justified the move by saying it’s part of a “pilot program” aimed at offering “promotions and curated advertisements” to increase “everyday value.” The company said this would be done through an over-the-network (OTN) software update, and that ads will only appear when the fridge screen is idle.

Is the Fridge+ subscription on its way?

Currently, there’s no way to turn these ads off — not even a paid, ad-free option. So it seems that people who already shelled out thousands for a fridge are now stuck with ads on its door display, and can do exactly… nothing about it.

Reddit had a field day once Samsung officially confirmed the ads weren’t there by accident.“Imagine paying thousands of dollars for a fridge just to get ads on it?” one Redditor wrote. Others joked — or maybe predicted — that the fridge might soon start showing 30-second pre-roll ads before it lets you open the door, in true YouTube fashion.

And since Samsung has officially announced that it wants to put screens on everything — from ovens to washers and dryers — we can probably expect ads coming to those too.

“Of course you know this is going to end in some f*ckery where the ice maker won’t work unless you have a paid subscription,” another user posted. And honestly, that indeed feels like exactly where we’re headed. It’s not at all beyond the scope of imagination that, at some point, in order to “improve” the very user experience they just degraded, Samsung might roll out a Fridge+ subscription — so you can pay to make your $1,800 fridge feel like it did before the ads showed up.

Source: Reddit

Blocking Samsung Fridge ads

One of the first questions that springs to an ad blocking user’s mind is whether the Samsung Fridge ads can be blocked. And while there’s no magical “off” switch or built-in setting to kill them, there are ways to get around them. They’re not the easiest, and definitely not bulletproof, but if you’re a bit tech-savvy, there’s hope.

AdGuard Home: The best (but nerdier) way to block the ads

If you’re comfortable setting up a bit of home network infrastructure,AdGuard Home is likely the most promising method available right now.

It works as a local DNS server running on your network — for example, on a Raspberry Pi or a low-power PC — and lets you filter and block domains (including those used for ads or telemetry) before the traffic ever reaches the internet.

AdGuard Home’s dashboard gives you detailed logs of DNS requests, so if the fridge is making calls to specific ad domains, you can identify and block them manually. Once installed, AdGuard Home will cover all devices on your home network, no additional client software is required. This is especially important for various IoT devices that could pose a threat to your privacy (a smart fridge included).

That said, this approach works best when the fridge fetches ad content through standard domain name lookups, which, in most cases, it likely does. As far as we know, Samsung isn’t using more advanced methods like hardcoded IP addresses or encrypted DNS in its refrigerators, which would make DNS-level blocking much harder. While technically possible, it’s unlikely that a fridge — even a high-end one — would go to those lengths just to serve ads.

AdGuard DNS: The easier to configure but less flexible option

If AdGuard Home sounds like a bit much, there’s also AdGuard DNS that doesn’t need any hardware or installation. You just change your router’s DNS settings to point to AdGuard’s servers, and that’s it.

Most smart fridges (and smart devices in general) automatically get their DNS settings from the router via DHCP, which means they’ll use whichever DNS server the router is configured to use. So, if you set your router’s DNS to AdGuard’s public ad-blocking DNS servers, your fridge will likely start using AdGuard DNS as well — and known ad domains could be blocked at the DNS level. Just like in AdGuard Home, the AdGuard DNS paid plan lets you create custom rules and inspect traffic logs to see exactly what’s happening under the hood.

Types of members

DNS accounts now support three access levels. Ownership is fixed at registration, while admins and viewers are added through invitations. Roles can be updated or revoked at any time, and the number of members is virtually unlimited.

• Owner — the account holder with full access to all settings and billing
• Admin — a member who can modify DNS settings, manage devices, and invite other members. Best for system administrators or MSPs responsible for network filtering in organizations
• Viewer — a member with read-only access. Can view settings and statistics but cannot make changes. Best for consultants or managers who monitor network activity and provide recommendations without modifying DNS settings

Why it’s useful for owners

You no longer need to share your email address and password to let others manage your DNS settings. Each member has their own credentials, and you have exclusive control over billing.

Why it’s useful for admins

For admins, the update simplifies work across different organizations. The admin role provides control over DNS settings, servers, and access. With a single login, you can manage several accounts and switch between them quickly.

To become an admin, ask the owner of the DNS account to send you an invitation.

How to invite members

1. Go to your dashboard → Settings.
2. In the Organization section, open Members.
3. Click Add member, enter your colleague’s email address, and select the access type — admin or viewer.
4. Wait until they accept the invitation, and you’re ready to collaborate!

Only owners and admins can invite new members. To use this feature, you need a Team or Enterprise subscription and a Business account type.

Share your experience

We’ve introduced member access to make DNS management more flexible. Tell us how it fits your workflow and what else would make it more effective — on GitHub or via social media.