Release notes

Android gets the 1.5.7 network-outage fix, the phone no longer announces a version it can’t install, and the link to new terms of use leads to the right site.

Fixed

• On Android, after a network outage, a site that was already open no longer hangs for up to a minute. The 1.5.7 fix reaches the phone: an HTTP/2 connection to a site that died silently during the outage is dropped within 25 seconds at most, instead of making every page from that site wait up to a minute. It applies to cleaning pages in browsers, once the certificate is installed.
• The phone no longer announces a version it can’t install. The Android app could show a version released for the computer only as “available”, with nothing to download. A new version is now announced only when its file exists for the phone.
• The dashboard’s “Read the new terms of use” link leads to the right site. It pointed to an address that didn’t answer; it now follows the site AdHole gets its updates from.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

After a stop and a restart, AdHole filters the whole computer again, not just the browsers, and a site that was already open no longer hangs for up to a minute when the network comes back after an outage.

Fixed

• After “Stop AdHole” then “Start AdHole”, this PC’s DNS goes through the filter again. Stopping hands DNS back to the router, so your connection keeps working. Until now, starting again didn’t take it back: only browser pages stayed filtered, not apps, games or Windows itself, and nothing said so. AdHole now reconnects it on its own a few seconds after starting, only once its filter is able to answer, with the router still as a fallback. The same goes after an incident where AdHole handed DNS back to the router before restarting. On Linux, likewise with adhole arreter then adhole demarrer. DNS handed back to the router with adhole dns off stays there.
• After a network outage, a site that was already open no longer hangs for up to a minute. An HTTP/2 connection to a site (the protocol most large sites use) that died silently during the outage could stay in the page filter’s pool: every page from that site then waited up to a minute before failing, long after the network was back. AdHole now checks these connections and drops one that no longer answers within 25 seconds at most.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

On Windows, after “Stop AdHole”, AdHole starts again the next time the PC starts up, filtering browser pages only, and Le Figaro’s consent window is finally recognised.

Fixed

• On Windows, AdHole starts again the next time the PC starts up after “Stop AdHole”. The confirmation window promised it, but with Windows Fast Startup, shutting the PC down doesn’t restart services: AdHole stayed stopped every time. Stopping from the icon now schedules filtering and the proxy to start again when you next sign in, then removes itself. In this version, this PC’s DNS, handed back to the router by the stop, still stayed there; since 1.5.7, AdHole reconnects it on its own once its filter is able to answer.
• Le Figaro’s consent window is recognised. It is drawn inside a frame by the AppConsent tool, which AdHole couldn’t see into. It offers no free refusal (“Refuser et s’abonner”, refuse and subscribe): it stays on screen by default, and disappears, along with its overlay and scroll lock, if you have turned on “Remove consent walls”. Nothing is accepted on your behalf, and trackers stay blocked.

New

• On Windows, “Start AdHole” in the icon’s menu when AdHole is stopped; the icon stays on screen after a stop. Opening the dashboard of a stopped AdHole also offers to start it again, instead of giving you a command to type.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

On YouTube, in the browser, no more “turn off your ad blocker” message, and videos start again: AdHole asks the server for an ad-free response instead of removing the ads itself.

Fixed

• YouTube no longer asks you to turn off AdHole. YouTube’s player checks three things: that a script from the doubleclick ad network has loaded, that the ad list announced by the video server matches the one it received, and that nothing in the page has been tampered with. AdHole serves that script itself, patches the player so it no longer reports an abnormality, and no longer touches the page’s code. The “Ad blockers violate YouTube’s Terms of Service” message no longer appears.
• YouTube videos start again. Since September 2026, YouTube does not serve the video until the scheduled ad has been played: removing the ads from the response left the video waiting forever. AdHole now asks the server, on the player’s behalf, for a response that schedules no ad. Ads in video lists (home, suggestions, search) are still removed.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

Updating no longer fails while the dashboard is open, and on Android an encrypted-DNS outage no longer cuts off the internet.

Fixed

• On the computer, updating no longer fails while the dashboard is open. The installer could not replace a file in use by the dashboard window or the notification icon, and stopped on a “code 5”. AdHole now closes those windows itself before installing, then reopens what was open — the icon, and the dashboard — once the service is back. Nothing else is reopened.
• On the computer, no more Microsoft Edge error window after an automatic update. The silent installer launched the dashboard with the service’s environment, which cannot write to its data folder. It no longer launches it, and the dashboard refuses anyway to open in a profile that is not yours.
• On the computer, a failed update says what to do, instead of a code number and a log path.
• On the computer, the fallback resolver waits five seconds, like the encrypted ones, instead of two: while recovering from an outage, it gave up before the router had answered.

New

• Android: an outage of the encrypted resolvers no longer cuts off the internet. When all of them have failed, the app asks the current network’s resolver for addresses — your router over Wi-Fi, your operator’s relay on mobile data — in plain text, for the length of the outage, and returns to the encrypted ones the moment one answers. Filtering does not stop meanwhile. That resolver then sees the names asked for: the privacy notice says so.
• Android: the counters survive the filter being stopped. The totals are kept on the phone — numbers only, no site name — and the home screen shows the running total with the date it started. The reset button clears it too.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

On the computer, the dashboard opens again, and an encrypted-DNS outage no longer cuts off the internet.

Fixed

• On the computer, the dashboard could stay shut for good. Opened from the notification area icon, it was born invisible; the program then found that window again and took it for an open one. No further click showed anything, neither on the icon nor on the desktop shortcut, until the PC was restarted.
• On the computer, an encrypted-DNS outage no longer cuts off the internet. When no encrypted resolver answers any more, AdHole asks your network’s router for addresses, in plain text, for the length of the outage, instead of returning an error that left the computer with nothing. It returns to the encrypted resolvers the moment one answers, and filtering does not stop meanwhile.
• On the computer, software that checks certificate revocation works again. The certificate the page filter creates for each site now states where to check its revocation, and AdHole serves that list. Until now the check was impossible, and software that requires it refused the connection.
• On the computer, the counters no longer go back to zero on every restart. The dashboard totals are kept on your disk — numbers only, no site name — and the total shown on this site stops underestimating.
• On the computer, the service log is no longer flooded during a network outage. It wrote one line per failed request: several thousand in a few minutes. It now sums them up.

Improved

• Android: page cleaning creates its certificates faster. One key now serves every site instead of one key per site: opening an unknown site costs only a signature, and the memory the app holds drops accordingly. The fixes above are specific to the computer.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

On Android, a “YouTube without ads” button opens YouTube in filtered Chrome.

New

• Android: YouTube without ads, in one button. On the app’s home, when page cleaning is on with the certificate installed, a button opens YouTube in Chrome, where the ad instructions are stripped from YouTube’s responses, on the mobile site as on the desktop one. In the browser only: the YouTube app is untouched.

Fixed

• Le Monde is refused instead of removed. The “Continue without accepting” link of its consent window is now recognised and clicked, on PC and Android.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

On Android, page cleaning needs half the memory.

Fixed

• Less memory on Android. With page cleaning on, the engine keeps its rules in compact indexes and gives memory back to the system instead of holding it: about 45 MB instead of 94 for the same rule set, no rule lost. A modest phone no longer kills the service for memory.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

The Android app now cleans the pages opened in the phone’s browsers, once you install yourself the root certificate it creates on the phone.

New

• Pages cleaned in the phone’s browsers. Ad slots hidden, ad scripts neutralised, cookie banners refused when the site offers to reject all, YouTube video ads removed in the browser: the same engine as on a computer, with lists chosen for the phone. This release is about Android alone — Windows and Linux are unchanged.
• A root certificate, created on the phone, installed by you. The app writes it to your Downloads folder; you install it once, in Android’s security settings, in a few screens. Its private key is created on the device and never leaves it: the publisher has no copy and cannot get one. Uninstalling the app does not remove the certificate: you take it out by hand, from the user credentials of Android’s security settings. As long as it isn’t installed, or if the setting is off, nothing is opened and the browser shows no certificate error.
• The phone’s traffic now goes through the app, on the device. Before, only the address of its virtual resolver did. The tunnel still leads nowhere outside the phone, there is no server of the publisher’s, and your IP address is not hidden. What it gains: an app that talks to a hard-coded DNS resolver instead of the system’s comes back under the filter, because everything sent to port 53 is answered by the filtering resolver.
• Terms of use 2.7 and privacy notice 2.6: they describe the certificate on the phone, what is opened and what never is.

What it doesn’t do

• Nothing outside browsers. Android doesn’t let one app read another app’s encrypted traffic, and AdHole doesn’t try: a connection that doesn’t come from a browser is relayed as it is, byte for byte. Ads in the YouTube app, in games and in news apps are still only reached by the domain-name filter.
• The sites left encrypted are never opened, in a browser or anywhere else: banks, payment, health, government services, game stores, encrypted messaging, storage, video streaming. The starting list is the computer’s, it can be read and changed, and it isn’t exhaustive: add your own sensitive sites.
• Firefox asks for one more setting: on its own, it doesn’t trust Android’s user certificate store.
• HTTP/3 (QUIC) is turned off for browsers while page cleaning is on, so they fall back to TLS over TCP; without that, nothing would be filtered. A page may load a little differently. With page cleaning off, QUIC goes through as before.
• Android 10 or newer for page cleaning: below that, the phone can’t tell which app a connection belongs to, and the connection is relayed as it is. The app itself still asks for Android 8.0.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

A public counter: the total of requests blocked across every user, shown on the home page. Terms of use 2.6 and privacy notice 2.5 say so.

New

• The total of blocked requests, shown on the home page. The anonymous statistic now carries, with the version check, the number of requests blocked since the previous check: a plain number, with no domain name, no address, no date. The server only adds it into a total, shown here. The “Anonymous statistics” switch stops the send exactly as before.
• Terms of use, version 2.6, and privacy notice 2.5: they describe that number, what it is used for and its switch.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

A new look for the dashboard and the Android app: graphite, a single typeface, no lines. The program itself is unchanged.

New

• The dashboard, redone. Graphite background, rounded tiles, a single typeface (Sora, shipped inside the program: the dashboard still downloads nothing). Sky blue says what is running: the dot before the running state, the switches, the rate curve. What is removed is written in white, what passes in grey. On a wide window, the three views are picked from a left column.
• The Android app in the same style. Home in four blocks: the switch, the share of traffic removed, the latest blocked requests, the tab bar. The first-run screen is one title and one paragraph, followed by the list of what the app doesn’t do.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

The dashboard rebuilt around three views, in a night theme — and an app for Android, downloaded from here.

New

• AdHole for Android. One app, downloaded from this site, that filters ad and tracking domains on the phone itself, for every app, on Wi-Fi and on mobile data, with the same lists as the computer version. It filtered by domain name only: no certificate, nothing decrypted, and the ads inside the YouTube app stayed. Android 8.0 or newer.
• Terms of use, new version. They now describe the Android app: what it filters, what it leaves in place, that it is not distributed through a store, and that installing a file by hand is your decision.
• A dashboard in three views. Overview, Settings and Updates sit behind a tab bar instead of one long page, and the address keeps the view you are on, so the update banner’s link lands where it should.
• A night theme. The window no longer follows a light system theme: it is dark, with two typefaces shipped inside the program (replaced in 1.4.0). The dashboard still downloads nothing from the internet.

Fixed

• Windows: the dashboard refused to open while a dialogue box from the icon near the clock was open. It opens now, and a minimised window is restored and brought to the front. Shipped in 1.2.1.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →

The first version offered on this site: English and French, terms of use you agree to before an update changes them, and Linux.

New

• English and French. The interface takes your computer’s language at installation and can be changed in the settings. The Windows installer shows the terms of use in the language of Windows. Technical logs stay in French.
• Terms of use, new version. An update that comes with new terms no longer installs on its own: the dashboard shows “Read the new terms of use” and “Accept the new terms and install”. Until you accept, your version keeps working.
• Anonymous statistics, on by default: at each start and then once a day, a random number replaced every month, the version and the system. One switch in the settings turns them off, and the number is deleted at once.
• Your router is detected automatically. Names that only exist at home, like your router’s admin page or a printer, go to the router AdHole finds. A router address set by hand still takes priority.
• Windows: adhole in the command path. The emergency command adhole dns off works in any command prompt opened after installation, run as administrator.
• Linux: one archive for PCs (amd64), one for Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 and other 64-bit ARM boards (arm64). systemd is required.

Kept from 1.1

• If AdHole stops, your pages keep opening. Browsers reach it through a configuration script and go direct when it doesn’t answer. On Windows, if it crashes, the service restarts after 1 s.

Known limits: what AdHole blocks, and what it doesn’t →