14 DAY TRIAL // What do you think about the Internet ads? How do you like them? Abounding, scarce, somewhere in between? How about none at all and without compromising the aspect of the webpage? Impossible? No, it is not impossible; you just haven't found the proper software to dismiss them.
Ad Muncher is a software specially designed to take big gulps of popups and all sort of advertising that prevent your browser from opening a webpage faster. Its "father" is Murray Hurps and he put a price on his "son's" head: $24.95.
The interface is actually the configuration window. When I first ran the program and opened the configurations I felt overwhelmed by the abundance of settings. The first tab is the Logs menu that displays what else if not the logs from the web pages you have visited. The user can see the logs for the Link target URLs, Image source URLs, Popup opening and blocked popup URLs, script texts, table texts, etc.
Based on the log entry, you can create a new filter (when Add filter button is visible). The "Go to" option, when visible, will guide the user to where the respective filter or option can be modified. The If enabled, the Freeze checkbox will stop the software from updating the logs.
The software will not remove whatever it thinks by itself, and its filters can be configured by the user in My filters tab. The available filter categories are displayed if you enter a keyword, URL or text and then click in the filter category menu: remove links to URL, remove images/etc with URL, block retrieval for URL, remove all popups from URL, remove images with "alt" text, remove scripts with text, remove tables with text, remove divs/spans with text, remove forms with text, allow popups with URL, minimal filtering on URL, no filtering on URL, don't match against keyword, add javascript to all pages, add CSS to all pages.
If you are not familiar with all the above mentioned information, the Help menu of the software will come extremely handy in configuring all those filters.
The Default Filters tab includes a fantastic number of 3026 filters that are maintained and retrieved from Ad Muncher developers. These filters will help you against the unwanted attack of the most common ads on the web. From this tab, the user can send reports to Ad Muncher developers to inform them about sites with adverts or a damaged site.
In the Tools tab, the user will deal with three submenus: Replace Text (to replace the content downloaded by the web browser or other software), IP Scramble (applies a higher level of privacy while you are browsing the Internet) and Load/Save/Reset Configuration (My filters, Replace text filters and All other configuration options).
The IP Scramble option is worth detailing a little. When enabled, this option will prevent the web administrators from seeing your real Internet address and they will not be able to see your browsing habits as your requests will be sent through a number of different proxies. When enabling the IP Scrambler you should take into consideration that your browsing speed will decrease significantly (the page request will take more steps before the page is loaded).
The Options tab is the richest of them all. There are nine submenus that allow the user to "play" with the settings for filtering, popups, updates, interface, browser extensions, caching, filter targets, routing and in the Advanced submenu.
In the Filtering section, the user can set the site behavior, ads treatment, browser behavior, and adult content. There would be a lot to say about each option in here, but suffice to say that you can set the Muncher to remove the music and sounds, prevent sites bookmarking or reloading themselves, and prevent "web bugs" from tracking page visits, etc. (all these under Site Behavior); leave small, text-only adverts alone, blocking the retrieval of 468 by 60 pixels images (Advert Treatment).
In Popups, most of the options are "un-commentable" as their names say it all: prevent popups from appearing (when site is loaded/closed), prevent automatic "javascript alert" text popups.
The Browser Extensions can be added to the most common/popular web browsers and allow you to report or remove the ads by right-clicking them and to exclude certain pages from filtering. The Filter Target list will allow you to select the softwares and connection types affected by Ad Muncher. Also, if you have problems filtering a certain software, look in here first.
I haven't gone through all the submenus and options of the software because most of them are easy to understand and easy to configure.
The Good
The software is extremely small and extremely efficient. It even "licks" the webpages clean so you will not run into blank spaces and there will be no trace of adverts.
The Bad
No comments here except for the price. It could have been a little lower.
The Truth
The software really does a great job and if you are a beginner and do not know how to use it, do not be disappointed as the Help menu will explain every aspect of the software.
Small, easy to use and runs on low memory usage and ferociously devours only the ads you are feeding. The software works extremely fine and it is indeed an ad muncher. I just hope it won't get too fat (on the price that is).
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
