Frequently asked questions

Yes, it’s free, and no, there’s no account. There’s nothing to pay, no ads in the app, and no data asked in return.

No. It’s free, but proprietary: its source code isn’t published and it may not be redistributed. The open-source libraries it uses are listed, with their licences, in the third-party licences.

In France, filtering what your own computer displays falls within your freedom to use your own machine: nothing obliges you to display the ads a site sends you. Rules may differ elsewhere. AdHole never unlocks content reserved for subscribers.

On the computer where it’s installed, yes: in your browser, videos start without ads. On a TV, a console or in the YouTube app on your phone, no: there, ads come from the same servers as the video, and nothing on the network can tell them apart. An Android phone with the app is a third case: in its browsers, once page cleaning is on and the root certificate is installed, YouTube video ads go the way they do on a computer — but not in the YouTube app. More: what it blocks, and what it doesn’t.

Yes, once you set their DNS to the computer’s address in their network settings. They then lose the ads and trackers served from ad servers, but not YouTube’s. The computer must stay on, and on Windows its network must be set to Private. An Android phone has a second way: install the app on it, and it is filtered wherever it goes.

On a computer, it clicks “reject all” when the banner offers it, and only looks for refusal buttons. It can still pick the wrong one: on a few sites it clicks “Accept”, or a refusal that leads to a payment page. If your choice matters on a site, check it through the site’s “Cookies” link. Pop-ups that demand consent without a free way to refuse stay in place; a setting, off to begin with, removes some of them, the ones it recognises. On Android, see the question about cookie banners on the phone.

Yes. It filters ad and tracking domains on the device itself, for every app, on Wi-Fi and on mobile data, with the same lists as the computer version. It can also clean the pages opened in the phone’s browsers — ad slots, cookie banners, YouTube video ads: turn that setting on (it starts off), then install yourself the root certificate it creates on the phone. Outside browsers, nothing is opened: ads in the YouTube app, in games and in news apps are only reached by the domain-name filter. Android 8.0 or newer; page cleaning asks for Android 10. More: block ads on Android.

In the phone’s browsers, yes, once page cleaning is on and the root certificate is installed. Many banners, including those of very common consent tools, are then hidden by a dedicated filter list: the site gets no answer at all. For the others, the app clicks “reject all” when the banner offers it; a banner that hides its refusal behind a “Settings” page usually stays on screen. But that list also accepts cookies on some sites, well-visited French ones among them, and AdHole doesn’t always stop it; as on a computer, it can also pick the wrong button. Inside apps, nothing: AdHole doesn’t look in there. If your choice matters on a site, make it yourself.

The banner at the bottom and the full-screen page between two levels come from ad networks whose names are on the lists, so they don’t load. A rewarded video is blocked in the same way — and a game that has shown no ad hands out no reward. Some then say “no ad available”. If the reward matters to you, turn filtering off for the time it takes.

Facebook Audience Network is served by graph.facebook.com, the same host as Facebook login. Blocking that name would lock you out of your account, so the filter lists leave it alone. It was one of the three networks that got through our measurement of 14 September 2026.

Yes. The filtering happens on the phone, so it follows you: Wi-Fi, mobile data, someone else’s network. No computer needs to be on at home.

We have no measurement to publish, so we won’t give you a figure. What the app does is modest: it answers the phone’s domain-name questions and keeps the answers in memory. All the phone’s traffic now goes through it, on the device: what doesn’t come from a browser is relayed as it is, without being opened. Android counts it among the apps running in the background, so its usage shows in the battery settings.

AdHole publishes its files itself, from its own site, with their SHA-256 checksums, as it does for Windows and Linux. What that changes for you: you allow the install by hand once, Android shows its warnings, and updates arrive when you fetch them, not on their own. More: installing on Android, step by step.

To filter the inside of HTTPS pages, AdHole has to read them, and the certificate lets it, on the device where it runs. It’s created there, and its private key never leaves it. There is a risk: anyone who copied that key could read your traffic, so never copy the “ca” folder in AdHole’s data. On a computer, uninstalling removes the certificate; on Android you install it yourself, and you take it out yourself — uninstalling the app leaves it in place. On Linux you can also install the DNS filter alone, with no certificate. More: how AdHole works.

AdHole never looks inside a built-in list of sites: payment services, the main French banks and insurers, French tax and health services, encrypted messaging. That list is built around France: most banks outside France aren’t in it. Add your bank, health insurer and employer to the sites left encrypted, in the dashboard’s settings, before your next sensitive login.

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. More: the AdHole privacy notice.

Your computer keeps its internet. When no encrypted resolver answers any more, AdHole asks Cloudflare in the clear (the last resolver in the default list) and, if that one is silent too, your router, for as long as the outage lasts — so 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 at all. Filtering doesn’t stop, and AdHole goes back to encrypted the moment a resolver answers. The Android app does the same, with the resolver of whichever network it is on: on mobile data your operator sees those names again; on a public Wi-Fi, whoever runs it.

Only with the owner’s consent, and at work with the consent of whoever runs the IT. AdHole decrypts traffic: under French law, installing it on someone’s computer without their knowledge is a criminal offence.

No. AdHole runs on Windows and Linux computers, and on Android phones and TV boxes. It isn’t offered for Mac.

Yes. The interface takes your computer’s language at installation, English or French, and you can change it afterwards in the settings. The installer shows the terms of use in either language. Technical logs stay in French.

Because the installer isn’t signed with a publisher certificate, a cost this free software hasn’t taken on. Windows can’t vouch for it, so it shows “Windows protected your PC”, then “Publisher: Unknown”. The warning doesn’t mean the file is dangerous, nor that it’s safe. Compare its SHA-256 checksum with the published one first; if you’re not comfortable with that, don’t install it. More: “Windows protected your PC”, step by step.

Those that use systemd (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Arch, Mint, Raspberry Pi OS…), on a PC or a 64-bit ARM board. The proxy is set automatically under GNOME and KDE; elsewhere, you set it by hand. There’s no icon near the clock: alerts appear in the dashboard. More: installing on Linux.

On Windows, Firefox 120 and later trust by default the root certificates added to Windows, AdHole’s included. If you see the error, that setting is probably off: under Settings → Privacy and security → Certificates, tick “Allow Firefox to automatically trust third-party root certificates you install” (or, in about:config, set security.enterprise_roots.enabled to true). On Linux, install certutil and run sudo adhole setup again.

Yes, by default, at night between 3 and 5 a.m.; if the computer is off at those hours, an update that has been waiting for more than seven days installs at the first opportunity. Filtering pauses while it installs; the terms of use allow for about thirty seconds. An update is installed only if its SHA-256 checksum matches the published one, and an update that changes the terms of use waits for your agreement in the dashboard. You can turn automatic installation off; AdHole will then just let you know.

Your pages keep opening, unfiltered, and the service restarts on its own. Only a connection running at that moment (a download, a video call) is cut.

On Windows, right-click the icon near the clock and choose “Stop AdHole…”. Or, in a Command Prompt run as administrator, type adhole dns off. On Linux: sudo adhole dns off. Your connection comes back at once. After adhole dns off, the computer’s DNS stays with the router, even once AdHole is running again: apps, games and Windows no longer go through its filter. To put it back, type adhole dns on the same way.

Add an allow rule for that site in the dashboard, or add it to the sites left encrypted. If that doesn’t help, write to contact@antoinemoury.fr with the exact page address and what you see instead.

Closing its window doesn’t stop it. On Windows: right-click the icon near the clock → “Stop AdHole…”; it starts again the next time the PC starts up, or sooner with “Start AdHole” in the same menu. To remove it for good: Settings → Apps → Installed apps → AdHole → Uninstall. On Linux: sudo adhole arreter, or sudo adhole teardown to remove everything. On Android, uninstall the app like any other: its data folder goes with it, but the root certificate stays in Android’s store — take it out in its security settings, under User credentials (labels vary by manufacturer). More: uninstalling.