AdGuard is a Cypriot company primarily offering ad blocking services. They offer dedicated ad blocking applications, browser extensions,[1] a DNS resolver, and a VPN service.
History
AdGuard was founded as a private company in Moscow, Russia in 2009, then later moved its headquarters to Cyprus.[2]
During late 2014, the distribution of AdGuard's app for Android was removed from Google Play. It has since been made available for download from the developer's own website.[3]
From the summer of 2018 to the summer of 2019, AdGuard for iOS received no updates[4][5][6] due to Apple policies at the time against ad blocking via the iOS VPN APIs.
In September 2018, AdGuard was hit by credential stuffing attack. AdGuard claims that their servers were not compromised and instead attackers used credential pairs reused by victims on other sites and stolen from those other sites. According to company spokesperson, they "do not know what accounts exactly were accessed by the attackers," so the company had reset passwords for all accounts "as a precautionary measure". Also, AdGuard pledged to use "Have I Been Pwned?" API to check all new passwords for appearance in known public data leaks. Furthermore, they implemented more strict password security requirements.[7]
In November 2020, Microsoft Edge Store and Chrome web store[8] were infiltrated with fraudulent add-ons posing as various legitimate VPN browser add-ons, including NordVPN and AdGuard's VPN add-on.[9] Subsequently, Microsoft and Google were alerted and actions were taken to remove the fake add-ons in the various browser stores.[10]
Features
AdGuard Home
AdGuard Home acts as a recursive DNS resolver, which prevents most advertisements from displaying by responding with an invalid address for domains that appear in its filter lists.
AdGuard Browser extensions
The browser extension blocks video ads, interstitial ads, floating ads, pop-ups, banners, and text ads.[11] It is also able to handle anti-AdBlock scripts.[12] AdGuard blocks spyware and warns users of malicious websites. AdGuard Content Blocker is an additional browser extension for Yandex Browser and Samsung Internet, which uses Content Blocker API. It downloads filter list updates and requests browsers to enforce them via Content Blocker API.[13]
AdGuard applications
AdGuard has Windows and Mac versions,[14] as well as native mobile versions for Android[15] and iOS. The application can set up a local VPN, filtering all traffic on the mobile device.
AdGuard DNS
AdGuard operates recursive name servers for public use. AdGuard DNS supports encryption over DNSCrypt, DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS, and DNS over QUIC.[16] AdGuard began testing the DNS service back in 2016, and officially launched it in 2018.[17]
Research
AdGuard developers have taken up research in order to inform wider audiences on user privacy, cybersecurity and data protection. The following issues are cases involving the developers:
See also
References
- Andrew Orr "AdGuard Pro is Being Discontinued due to App Store Policy", MacObserver.com, July 23, 2018^
- Official response from AdGuard to SetApp allegations, AdGuard Blog, March 10, 2022^
- Daria Magdik "Google Removes Adguard App From Google Play", AdGuard News, November 25, 2014^
- Andrew Orr. Apple Won't Say Why It Blocked AdGuard and Freedom The Mac Observer, 2018-09-20, retrieved 2023-05-07^
- Abhishek Raj. How to block ads on iPhone & iPad? Tips that work in 2022 Budding Geek, 2019-06-05, retrieved 2023-05-07^
- AdGuard Pro for iOS is back from the dead! retrieved July 27, 2019^
- Tom McNamara. All AdGuard ad blocker account passwords have been reset to fight off hackers CNET, 2018-09-21^
- Harry Domanski. Google has kicked five malicious ad blockers off the Chrome Store TechRadar, 19 April 2018^
- Dan Goodin "Abusive add-ons aren’t just a Chrome and Firefox problem. Now it’s Edge’s turn", ArsTechnica, November 21, 2020^
- James Gelinas. These VPN extensions are imposters that hijack your browser's search Komando.com, 24 November 2020, retrieved 29 October 2022^
- Eric Griffith "The 18 Best Firefox Quantum Extensions", PC Magazine, February 12, 2018^
- James A. Martin "The best Google Chrome extensions", Computerworld, August 10, 2017^
- AdGuard Content Blocker adguard.com, retrieved 2023-11-19^
- Aleksander Hougen. The 8 Best Ad Blockers That Play Nice With Chrome, Safari, Firefox in 2020 Cloudwards, Cloudwards.net, retrieved 2020-12-08^
- Lewis Painter. Best ad blocker for iPhone & iPad MacWorld, IDG Communications Ltd, retrieved 8 December 2020^
- AdGuard DNS-over-QUIC AdGuard DNS Blog, retrieved 2025-09-21^
- AdGuard officially releases its own DNS service, and it works with Android Pie Android Police, 2018-12-29, retrieved 2020-11-02^
- Privacy-friendly EDNS Client Subnet AdGuard DNS Blog, retrieved 2025-09-21^
- AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server Connect to public AdGuard DNS server, retrieved 2025-09-21^
- Michael Kan "Why Hackers Love Cryptocurrency Miner Coinhive", UK.PCMag, November 29, 2017^
- Anthony Cuthbertson "Over 500 Million PCs Are Secretly Mining Cryptocurrency, Researchers Reveal", Newsweek, October 13, 2017^
- Charlie Osborne "500 million PCs are being used for stealth cryptocurrency mining online", Zero Day, October 13, 2017^
- Matthew Hughes "Facebook tracking is present in 41% of the most popular Android apps", Thenextweb.com, March 23, 2018^
- Nadeem Sarwar "Is #DeleteFacebook Enough? Here’s the Harsh Truth About Facebook Tracking Through Apps", Beebom.com, March 27, 2018^
- Cal Jeffrey "AdGuard reports that 20 million Chrome users have malware infected ad blockers", Techspotl.com, April 19, 2018.^
- Harry Domanski "Google has kicked five malicious ad blockers off the Chrome Store", Techradar.com, April 19, 2018.^
- Rei Padla "GO Keyboard apps sends users’ data to servers and third parties, AdGuard says", AndroidCommunity.com, September 23, 2017^
- Adarsh Verma "11 Million Android, iOS, Chrome, And Firefox Users Infected By Spyware: Delete These Apps Now", Fossbytes.com, July 26, 2018^
- Wagas Amir "Popular Android/iOS apps & Extensions collecting highly personal user data", Hackread.com, July 26, 2018^
- Catalin Cimpanu "Chrome Extensions, Android and iOS Apps Caught Collecting Browsing Data", BleepeingComputer.com, July 25, 2018^