Trackers · Home and PC
Block trackers — on your PC and on your smart TV
AdHole blocks known tracking domains for every device that uses it as its DNS, and tracking requests inside pages, in this computer’s browsers and in those of an Android phone with the app. It doesn’t make you anonymous: what stays visible is listed below.
- Free
- No account
- No ads
- Windows, Linux, Android
- Blocked Known tracking domains, for every device that uses it as DNS
- Blocked Tracking requests inside pages, in this computer’s browsers and an Android phone’s
- Visible Your IP address, to the sites you visit
- Visible The names you look up, to the DNS resolver
The lists
Six public lists, refreshed once a day.
AdHole doesn’t write its own list of trackers. It relies on well-known public lists, downloaded from where their authors publish them and refreshed once a day. Each one can be switched off in the dashboard.
| List | Author | Filter |
|---|---|---|
| AdGuard DNS filter | AdGuard | Whole home (DNS) |
| HaGeZi’s Multi PRO | HaGeZi | Whole home (DNS) |
| HaGeZi’s Encrypted DNS Bypass | HaGeZi | Whole home (DNS) |
| AdGuard Base filter | AdGuard | This computer (proxy) |
| AdGuard Tracking Protection filter | AdGuard | This computer (proxy) |
| AdGuard French filter | AdGuard | This computer (proxy) |
The third list blocks known encrypted-DNS services, so an app can’t quietly go around the filter through one of them. AdHole also turns off Firefox’s automatic encrypted DNS, for the same reason.
Whole home
Every device that uses it as DNS.
Your TV, console or phone looks up a name before it contacts a server. Once its DNS points to the computer running AdHole, a tracking domain on the lists gets no answer, in every app on the device.
Which names a device looks up depends on the device. The dashboard shows live what goes through and what’s blocked, and the devices using AdHole.
Some devices ignore the DNS you give them and use their own: a Chromecast, for instance, uses Google’s. AdHole can’t filter those.
- No answer google-analytics.com AdGuard DNS filter · HaGeZi’s Multi PRO
- No answer app-measurement.com AdGuard DNS filter · HaGeZi’s Multi PRO
- No answer scorecardresearch.com HaGeZi’s Multi PRO
- No answer samsungacr.com AdGuard DNS filter · HaGeZi’s Multi PRO
Inside pages
On this computer, inside the pages too.
In the browsers of the computer where it runs, AdHole looks inside pages. It checks each request’s full address against the lists, not just its server’s name, so it can stop a tracker served from a domain the site also needs.
That’s the job of the AdGuard Tracking Protection filter, on top of the two ad filters.
An Android phone with the app looks inside its browsers’ pages too, once you install by hand the root certificate it creates there, but without the AdGuard Tracking Protection filter: trackers are stopped there by their domain name, as in the phone’s other apps, where nothing is opened.
The sites left encrypted, such as banks, payment and health services, and the ones you add, aren’t looked inside: only the whole-home filter applies to them.
Encrypted DNS
Your DNS queries leave encrypted.
By default, AdHole sends its DNS queries to Cloudflare over an encrypted connection, with Quad9 as a backup. As long as one of them answers in time, your internet provider doesn’t read them. Cloudflare does: it sees the names of the sites you open. You can change resolver in the settings.
As a last resort, if neither answers, or both take more than three seconds, AdHole also asks Cloudflare in the clear rather than leave you without internet: that’s the last resolver in the default list.
And if even that one stays silent, AdHole asks your router, still in the clear; after three failures in a row, it goes straight to the router for as long as the outage lasts. Your internet provider sees those names again: this fallback goes around the encryption you chose. It doesn’t last: while questions keep coming, AdHole retries the resolvers at most every ten seconds, and goes back to them the moment one answers. Filtering carries on — an ad domain is blocked before the question ever goes out.
What stays visible
What AdHole can’t hide.
- Your IP address. Every site you visit sees it: AdHole doesn’t hide it, and doesn’t make you anonymous.
- The names you look up. The DNS resolver sees them: Cloudflare by default, or the one you choose.
- The servers you connect to. As long as the encrypted resolvers answer, your internet provider doesn’t read your DNS queries; it still sees which servers your devices talk to.
- Tracking a site does from its own servers. A filter that works on addresses can’t always tell it from the site itself, so it often goes through.
- What you do while signed in. A service you’re signed in to knows what you do on it.
- Devices that don’t use it. A device whose DNS doesn’t point to AdHole, or that ignores the DNS you give it, isn’t filtered.
- Inside the sites left encrypted. Only their server names are filtered.
The dashboard
Every blocked request, live, then forgotten.
The dashboard shows live what goes through and what’s blocked, the most-blocked domains and your devices. It keeps recent requests in memory only: they vanish when the service stops. No browsing history is written to disk: only the technical log may note a domain name there, when an error occurs.
A site looks broken? Allow it with one line, from the dashboard.
What AdHole itself sends: an anonymous statistic, at each start and then once a day. A random number replaced every month, the version, the system, and the number of requests blocked since the previous check — a plain number, which feeds the total shown on this site; nothing about your browsing, and no IP address stored. One switch turns it off.
Questions
The usual questions.
Does AdHole make me anonymous?
No. It stops your devices reaching known tracking servers. But the sites you visit still see your IP address, and the DNS resolver sees the names you look up.
Does Cloudflare see my browsing?
It sees the names of the sites you open, as your internet provider did before. Not the pages or what’s in them. You can pick another resolver in the settings.
What if the encrypted resolver goes down?
Your devices keep their internet. When no encrypted resolver answers in time any more, AdHole asks in the clear for as long as the outage lasts, first Cloudflare, the last resolver in the default list, then your router if that one is silent too: your internet provider sees those names again. It’s a stopgap, not a setting — a name resolved in the clear beats a computer with no internet. Filtering carries on, and AdHole goes back to encrypted the moment a resolver answers.
Does it stop my smart TV’s tracking?
The tracking domains on the lists, yes, once the TV’s DNS points to the computer running AdHole: Samsung’s samsungacr.com is on them, for instance. The dashboard shows what the TV looks up. Turning off ad personalisation in the TV’s own settings helps too.
What does AdHole send to the publisher?
An anonymous statistic, sent with the version check: on a computer at each start and then once a day, on Android only when you check for updates yourself. It holds a random number replaced every month, the version, the system, and the number of requests blocked since the previous check — a plain number, which feeds the total shown on this site. Nothing about your browsing: no domain name, no address, no date. No IP address is stored. One switch in the settings turns it off; on Android, a check you ask for still gives the version and the system.
What it doesn’t do
- Hide your IP address, or make you anonymous.
- Stop the DNS resolver from seeing the names you look up.
- Filter a device that doesn’t use it as DNS.
- Look inside the sites left encrypted.
Free, for Windows, Linux and Android.
One program on your computer, one app on your phone. No account, no ads, nothing to pay.
- Free
- No account
- No ads
- Windows, Linux, Android