AdGuard For Windows Updates & Release Notes

A brand-new version, a new major number, a fresh design — and, most importantly, truly system-wide protection. AdGuard for Windows v8.0 doesn’t just look different: it gives you clearer control over the traffic on your computer and makes the most important settings easier to reach.

Truly system-wide protection

Alongside the DNS filtering you already had, AdGuard offers full-fledged network-level filtering. This means stronger protection and more control: you can filter all Internet traffic on your device, so your protection is system-wide.

AdGuard uses a special network driver that handles the actual sending and receiving of data, allowing us to filter traffic from every app on your device.

While DNS filtering is still there, it is less flexible, and some tracking requests can still get through. This is where HTTPS filtering becomes essential. With it enabled, AdGuard can inspect traffic within Windows apps. This allows us to distinguish between legitimate content and tracking requests, even when they come from the same domain. By decrypting the traffic, AdGuard can identify the full URL and block only the tracking requests while leaving the rest of the app working just fine.

While HTTPS filtering is enabled for browsers by default, it is disabled for most other apps to ensure better compatibility. You can always enable it for extra protection: just select the application you want to filter in

App management

and toggle on

Filter HTTPS traffic

.

See what your apps are doing and take control

To make managing traffic easier and give you a clear picture of what’s happening on your device, we’ve added two new sections:

App management

and

Statistics

.

App management

App management

lets you control how each app accesses the Internet. By default, AdGuard filters everything. As soon as an app goes online, it appears in

App management

, and its traffic is routed through AdGuard. From there, you can configure what to do with the app and how to filter it:

• Decide which apps have their traffic routed through AdGuard
• Choose to block ads and trackers in specific apps
• Enable HTTPS filtering in apps of your choice

We’ve also introduced

Filter unknown apps

, a new setting for handling apps that are not yet in the compatibility or exclusion lists. It’s on by default — new apps get regular filtering, while HTTPS interception stays off to avoid affecting app behavior.

Statistics

Statistics

show detailed network activity. The

Companies

section provides a perspective on all the companies that your device has sent requests to, while in

Apps

and

Domains

you see the stats specific traffic data for every app routed through AdGuard. You can quickly identify and block anything suspicious.

Not only inside updates: A complete redesign

AdGuard for Windows has been completely redesigned. Our focus was on simplicity and ease of use. The most important tools are now front and center, while advanced settings are still available — just tucked away so they don’t overwhelm new users.

Key settings in plain sight

The app is designed to let you enable everything you need straight from the first screen. Just click the symbols you see — they stand for blocking ads and trackers, handling cookie notices and similar annoyances, and DNS protection.

Fine-tune your protection

: Head to the

Protection

section, where settings are clearly categorized, explained in simple terms, and enabled by one toggle.

Tracking protection

: Choose a level of protection — from a simple, comfortable experience to a more advanced one, which includes deleting cookies for enhanced privacy. There is also a custom level where you can freely fine-tune everything to suit your preferences: like blocking notifications from websites or enabling anti-DPI protection.

Advanced approach to filtering

: You can find low-level and network settings in

Settings → App settings
.

For more details on new features,

check the Knowledge Base
.

It’s been a huge overhaul, and we can’t wait to hear what you think. Share your thoughts and send improvement ideas via

GitHub Issues
.

v7.22.4 introduces SockFilter

This is one of those moments where a patch deserves the same attention as a full release: v7.22.4 introduces SockFilter, a new, experimental lightweight network driver for AdGuard for Windows. While still far from perfect (you will probably find a few bugs here and there), we’re confident in its potential to make AdGuard better in the future.

Why introduce a new driver at all?

Until now, AdGuard for Windows relied mostly on a WFP driver. WFP is powerful, but it also comes with complexity, compatibility challenges, and stability issues.
The TDI driver used to be an alternative, and while it is still available, it’s an outdated solution and may lead to filtering issues in some versions of Google Chrome. A temporary workaround exists, but it’s not a reliable long-term solution.
The conclusion was simple: it was time for a change. That’s why we’re introducing SockFilter — it brings a different approach that works especially well for ad blocking, plus it’s the solution we’ve been waiting for to finally put these problems behind us.

The advantages of SockFilter

When fully tested and implemented, SockFilter has the potential to bring several advantages over other drivers. Right now, it’s still experimental and unstable, so you might not see all the benefits yet. But here’s a look at what’s possible in the future:

• Better interaction with other network apps: SockFilter is designed to cooperate smoothly with VPNs, firewalls, and antivirus software. By avoiding clashes over network control, it can help prevent connection issues and make everything work together more reliably.
• Lower risk of system crashes: SockFilter works in a safer part of Windows networking, which can help it avoid deep system errors that can sometimes cause sudden blue-screen crashes. In practice, this can result in better stability and fewer chances of your system unexpectedly crashing while AdGuard is running.
• On track for better stability: SockFilter works closer to how apps normally use the Internet, instead of dealing with low-level network data, resulting in the potential to reduce complexity behind the scenes and making AdGuard more reliable in everyday use.

Known issues

So far, a small number of users have reported an issue with SockFilter: the new driver appears to interfere with voice and video calls on Discord. The problem was described on GitHub.
Our QA team has successfully reproduced the issue and is actively working on a fix. If you notice any related problems or have additional details to share, please let us know. Your feedback helps us resolve this faster.

How to start using it

Other issues may appear when using SockFilter, after all, Experimental mode means that it’s ready for testing and that there may be bugs. We’d love your help in finding them!
To test it, go to Settings → Network → Traffic filtering, enable traffic filtering, and select SockFilter (Experimental) from the list of available options. If you notice anything unusual, unexpected, or just plain broken, you can switch back to TDI or WFP at any time. In that case, please report the issue on GitHub — your feedback directly helps shape the future of AdGuard for Windows.

Changelog

• Added SockFilter driver #5780

Hotfix

In this hotfix, we’re automatically migrating all users from the outdated TDI driver to the more reliable WFP driver. This change comes as a solution to an issue reported by users, ensuring filtering works with the latest versions of Chrome-based browsers, which aren’t fully compatible with TDI.

TDI isn’t going away completely — you can still enable it if you want to. But if you do, the app will show you a clear warning explaining the potential issues and how to temporarily fix them. For all the details, check out our Knowledge Base.

Improved userscript compatibility

This update brings exciting improvements to make your AdGuard experience even better: you now get more customization with our improved userscript compatibility. Behind this change is CoreLibs v1.19, AdGuard’s filtering engine and technical core. Although not strictly tied to this release, we also have something worth celebrating: AdGuard is now available in the Microsoft Store, making installation more convenient and, we dare say, easier than ever.

Some userscripts are designed to work on Single Page Applications (SPAs), such as YouTube. Until now, these scripts often failed to load correctly: if a user opened YouTube’s homepage first, the script wouldn’t inject, and it wouldn’t trigger when navigating to other pages where it was supposed to work. With this update, AdGuard fixes that limitation by ensuring such scripts are properly executed across SPA websites, making AdGuard even more flexible for advanced customization options. This enhancement also allows us to confidently recommend useful tools like the SponsorBlock userscript, which automatically skips sponsored segments in YouTube videos. To try it out:

• Go to https://mchangrh.github.io/sb.js/.
• Click Generate link.
• Copy the link that appears.
• Open AdGuard and go to Extensions → Add extension → Import from file or URL.
• Paste the copied link and confirm.

AdGuard is now in the Microsoft Store

You can now download AdGuard directly from the Microsoft Store, making it quick and secure to install, update, and manage alongside your other apps. Subscriptions and payments are still handled directly through AdGuard’s website, ensuring flexibility and full control over your license. Product updates for builds downloaded from the Microsoft Store will work the same way as in the regular builds. In other words, the store version is simply a new distribution channel, and the update process remains unchanged.

Support for Comet browser

We’ve added full compatibility for Perplexity’s Comet browser. Now you can now enjoy the same reliable ad blocking and privacy protection in Comet as you do in other supported browsers.

Changelog

Improvements

• Added Perplexity Comet to the list of supported browsers
• Added a warning when userscripts require modifying the CSP

Fixes

• The option “Exclude Wi-Fi SSID from the DNS filtering” does not work
• Microsoft Recall is enabled by default on Windows 10 Pro 22H2
• User rules counter appears at app’s launch
• Active tabs in the Filtering log are not visually highlighted in dark theme
• False “Error” status is shown during update check despite filters being updated successfully
• The filter version and the date information are not shown in Custom filters

DnsLibs (DNS filtering engine)

• DnsLibs updated to v2.6.20

CoreLibs (Filtering engine)

• CoreLibs updated to v1.19.34

Improvements

• Added wildcard and regexp support to the $app modifier
• Added support for the ALPS extension

Fixes

• Content-type modifiers cannot be used with the $urltransform modifier
• XHR timeout with “immersivetranslate” userscript
• Filtering is disabled because it may affect websites’ performance
• Some extensions stopped working after updating to v2.17
• $removeparam does not work in pair with $domain

Scriptlets (JavaScript enhancement for filtering rules)

• Scriptlets updated to v2.2.10

Improvements

• Added new scriptlet — trusted-replace-argument
• Added support for uBO arguments for href-sanitizer

Fixes

• prevent-element-src-loading — TrustedScriptURL is not defined in Firefox
• trusted-replace-node-text — some quotes are incorrectly escaped
• Scriptlets compilation error in Safari 15 due to unsupported regex
• trusted-set-cookie-reload — infinite reload for constantly changing values

Here’s an additional technical update following the previous one. In it, we’ve fixed bugs and kept working on the app stability.

Changelog

Fixes

• Pages on Facebook don’t load fully when AdGuard and ESET are running simultaneously
• The app keeps crashing after updating to the latest version 7.21
• Rules are loading strangely at app startup

CoreLibs (Filtering engine)

Fixes

• CoreLibs updated to v1.18.34

Scriptlets (JavaScript enhancement for filtering rules)

Fixes

• Scriptlets updated to v2.2.8

Fixes

• trusted-set-cookie-reload — infinite reload for constantly changing values