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Versjonshistorie Ad Muncher

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Endringer for v4.93 - v4.94

  • - Small fix to update system.
  • - Fixed crash with larger filter lists.
  • - Fixed error about missing download source in Install.ini.
  • - Implemented an entirely new update system, designed to handle the increased load we're anticipating from our free release.
  • - Removed all of the license management and anti-piracy code.



Endringer for v4.92 - v4.93

  • Key: E = Enhancement
  • F = Fix
  • 33707/E - Final packaging changes for release.
  • 33705/F - Fixed crashes of some 64bit processes.
  • 33688/E - A few small filtering tweaks and fixes.
  • 33676/F - Many small fixes and tweaks to memory management and filtering code.
  • 33526/F - Fixed dialog display after registration reset.
  • 33514/F - Fixed icon recreation after explorer crash, also fixed the same when
  • running as an administrator.
  • 33502/F - Fixed occasional interference with HTTP protocol switching.
  • 33499/F - Welcome balloon is now not shown if balloons are disabled on the
  • system, which avoids some weirdness when clicking the icon on some
  • versions of Windows.
  • 33482/F - Fixed system tray error message.
  • 33446/E - Several improvements and bug fixes to the new system tray and other
  • interface code.
  • 33333/E - Version number is now displayed in a more compact way.
  • 33332/E - Implemented a better method of handling new list formats in the
  • config file to avoid old types piling up.
  • 33330/E - Removed the recently blocked popup list from the logs tab, as these
  • are now available through the toolbar and reporting them from the
  • browser to the program introduces a small delay in opening all
  • popups.
  • 33317/E - Improved engine behavior when helper files are retrieved and
  • filtering is disabled.
  • 33316/E - Rewrote the system tray handling code from scratch. Now displays an
  • "installation complete" balloon on installation or upgrade instead
  • of opening the browser. Supports high-DPI display setups for the
  • tray icon, allows for easier language translation, and removes
  • another chunk of old ASM code.
  • 33177/F - Removed some old tray icon hiding preferences (now just hide/don't
  • hide).
  • 33176/F - Fixed incorrect behavior when clicking the "Import configuration"
  • button on the registration dialog.
  • 33175/F - Fixed hung installer on some systems when launching URLs.
  • 33163/F - Fixed OS detection code.
  • 33162/E - Many internal improvements to the codebase.
  • 33128/F - Fixed bandwidth saved value shown on "About" tab.
  • 33126/E - The prompt shown when trying to sort the filters by category or
  • keyword now defaults to "No".
  • 33126/F - Fixed version reporting when sending reports from the toolbar.
  • 33109/F - Fixed broken shortcut key combos.
  • 33108/E - Removed the option to open blocked popups from the system tray menu,
  • as this is now available in-browser with the toolbar.
  • 33104/E - Added an option to the "Interface" tab to disable the in-browser
  • toolbar if required.
  • 33103/E - Many more improvements to helper script handling.
  • 33070/E - Improvements to helper script handling.
  • 33068/E - Removed the option to prevent modifications to the browser status
  • bar. No modern browser needs this feature as they have all removed
  • support for status bar modifications.
  • 33053/F - Fixed potential crash when a page was excluded from filtering and
  • then included again.
  • 33033/E - Added hotpatch support to patching engine.
  • 33016/E - Improved the appearance of the system tray icons.
  • 33013/E - Improved tag removal code.
  • 33006/F - Fixed bug where installations that were configured to check for
  • beta updates and had basic licenses were failing to receive non-beta
  • list versions.
  • 33004/E - Finished implementing a new toolbar system for Ad Muncher. This
  • system displays a toolbar inside filtered pages when ctrl or shift
  • is pressed while right-clicking on a page, or when a popup is blocked
  • or other information needs to be displayed.
  • This system has replaced the old browser extension system and means
  • we don't need a different version of the extensions for every
  • browser type, and will allow us to expose much more complex
  • functionality in the future.
  • 32986/F - Fixed crashes under Windows XP.
  • 32954/E - Improvements to mutex handling in the config code.
  • 32935/F - Fix to the beta update check frequency.
  • 32934/E - Improved handling of MP4 videos.
  • 32932/E - The "about" tab of the configuration window now shows the last four
  • characters of the registration code to help users see which code is
  • in use.
  • 32930/E - More improvements to exclusion handling and helper script embedding.
  • 32888/E - Made browser extension compatible with recent Firefox releases.
  • 32886/E - Vastly improved handling of external content on excluded pages so
  • that excluded pages should rarely need extra filters to exclude
  • them completely from filtering.
  • 32869/F - Fixed possible loss of licensing details when retrieving updates.
  • 32864/E - Improvements to helper script insertion.
  • 32852/E - Moved the helper script and CSS to external files so that the amount
  • of code inserted into filtered pages is reduced substantially.
  • 32836/E - Implemented the ability to supply extra content via the server
  • supplied filter list. This is currently used for the helper scripts
  • but can be extended to allow us to package icons/etc for use in a
  • web interface.
  • 32805/E - Improved method used for replacing script tags to avoid problems on
  • some sites.
  • 32803/F - Fixed possible breaking of the helper script if the user switches
  • between different versions of the betas.
  • 32800/E - Reduced the number of changes Ad Muncher's helper script needs to
  • make to certain anchor tags to avoid conflicts with some sites, eg:
  • Vimeo.
  • 32799/F - Fixed lack of filtering on some sites.
  • 32792/F - Fixed possible crash when exporting configuration.
  • 32791/E - Improved removal statistic recording.
  • 32790/E - Many improvements to how the helper script is packaged and inserted,
  • for example it can now be updated via the filter list.
  • 32746/E - Added option to the list for "Automatic check frequency" named
  • "Automatic", which will let the server decide how often updates
  • should be checked for based on recent release schedules.
  • 32739/E - Implemented code to allow us to release list updates as betas for
  • testing before going out to a wider audience. To receive these,
  • enable the option to "Load development versions..." on the "Updates"
  • tab.
  • 32731/F - Fixed potential crash from 64-bit patches under Windows XP.



Endringer for v4.91 - v4.92

  • Many improvements to the memory management code
  • Fixed Ad Muncher browser extension under Firefox 4.0.1 and newer
  • Added extra checks to ensure the ad removal counter is saved when shutting down the computer
  • Fixed URL opening code in the installer so it won't launch browsers in the administrator context (where Ad Muncher can't filter them)
  • Implemented a system for swapping new filtering engines into Ad Muncher as needed. Currently being used for testing and development of a new upcoming engine
  • Modified the installer to not show a confirmation screen at the end of installing or upgrading. Instead it will now launch Ad Muncher immediately and display a page in the browser that will notify the user if a newer version is available and display the



Endringer for v4.9 - v4.91

  • Extended the timeout for creating the configuration directories from 10 to 30 seconds to help avoid problems with delayed network connections on system startup.
  • Improved the load time of the hook DLL.
  • Tracked down a very difficult bug in the hook handling code that could result in aborted outbound connections.
  • Implemented blank SWF replacement.
  • Removed old IP Scramble code to make way for a faster method of routing connections.
  • Improved helper script handling of mouse interference prevention.
  • Fixed bug in keyboard shortcuts.
  • Fixed conflict with some 64-bit patching systems that could cause patched 64-bit browsers to crash.
  • Fixed possible corrupted connection when filtering is disabled.
  • Added a checkbox option to the "Options" / "Filtering" tab allowing filtering to be disabled on intranet connections.
  • Fixed bug in handling of disabled connections.
  • Fixed possible browser crash when Ad Muncher was closed.
  • Fixed possible stalled connections when a browser tried to connect the same socket again after it was already connected.
  • Implemented smaller blank SWF replacement.
  • Added code signing to the hook DLLs and 64-bit hook launcher for a little extra security.
  • Fixed potential lack of filtering in 64-bit processes if Ad Muncher was closed and launched again.
  • Fixed potential crash when relocation certain kinds of x64 jmps and calls.
  • Fixed error messages about missing "Object" under IE9 on some pages.
  • Fixed error message about server-supplied filters under IE9 sessions embedded inside external apps (eg: FeedDemon).
  • Fixed error message under IE9 on some pages.
  • Fixed occasional error message when using the context menu extensions in IE9.
  • Added code to the installer's manifest so it doesn't show a warning about the installation failing under Windows 7.
  • Recompiled with latest server list.



Endringer for v4.81 - v4.9

  • Finished implementing the new patching system. The new system is a great improvement on the old one, and should result in more reliable and stable connection intercepts. It also fully supports filtering of 64-bit applications (for example, Internet Explorer 64), and will allow us to filter some functions that we couldn't previously. The latter capability is planned to enable Ad Muncher to deal with more system annoyances in the future.
  • Fixed crash under XP.
  • Added authenticode signature to the installer and main Ad Muncher program file to help our users tell when the installer has been modified by third parties.
  • Changed the arrangement of the installer and main program files, resulting in a 5% reduction in installer size and a 59% reduction in installation size.
  • Improved UAC handling in the installer.
  • Fixed possible failure to filter content.
  • Improved XML overlap correction.
  • Improved error reporting in automatic update system.
  • Improved error reporting when failing to load hook code into Winsock DLL.
  • Fixed occasional duplicate license validations when only one is needed.
  • Fixed incorrect reporting of last program update.
  • Fixed unnecessary file left behind from old installations when upgrading to v4.9.
  • Fixed possible failure to correctly hook winsock functions.
  • Fixed lack of filtering for WebSite-Watcher.
  • Improved stability of patching system.
  • Improved video ad replacement.
  • Improved overlap correction on RSS content.
  • Several improvements to the installer and uninstaller.
  • Fixed occasional directory creation errors in the installer.
  • Rewrote some of the patching functions, minimizing the number of patches needed and improving the reliability in several places.
  • 64-bit patching has been temporarily disabled under Windows XP x64 edition until we can figure out why it's causing some programs to crash. The crash doesn't appear to affect newer versions of Windows.
  • The installer will now check all parent folders are present when ceating new directories, and if not create them.
  • Small fix to helper script formatting.
  • Several improvements to the helper script.



Endringer for v4.8 - v4.81

  • Fixed erroneous "0" that was displayed in the browser status bar under some circumstances when it should have been blank.
  • Added an interface so we can disable certain parts of the helper script as necessary, which was required to fix a conflict with the most recent version of Facebook's web site.
  • Fixed occasional blank source URLs in log entries.
  • Removed code designed to check for very very old browsers because a conflict with some third-party software that injected scripts into websites could not be resolved and the check would only be useful extremely rarely.
  • Added code to isolate exactly which filter any JavaScript errors occurred in so it can be reported to the user.
  • Switched to a new method of isolating errors in user-supplied JS filters that uses much fewer browser resources and minimizes any impact on page load times.
  • Improved error reporting when a script error is detected in a server-supplied script filter.
  • If Ad Muncher is unable to access its configuration folders on startup, it will now retry once a second for ten seconds, to avoid problems with storing configuration files on a network drive which is inaccessible on startup.
  • Added provision in the helper script for server-supplied filters to tweak popup blocking parameters as needed.
  • Added workaround to avoid conflict with Softros LAN Messenger.



Endringer for v4.73 Build 30552 Beta - v4.8

  • Most significant changes:
  • A completely new system has been implemented for filtering JavaScript content, which provides much more reliable popup filtering and significantly reduces the chances of unwanted interference with web sites.
  • Significant filtering performance improvements have also been made, along with other minor fixes and improvements.
  • This release also makes Ad Muncher compatible with Microsoft's new Windows 7.
  • Changes
  • Improved helper script behavior to avoid possible interference with "onmousedown" event handling. This change also fixes the broken drag/drop handling in Opera.
  • Changed "Allow filtering enable/disable when locked" option to "Allow Ad Muncher to be closed or disabled when locked". Ad Muncher will now require a password to be closed if this option is disabled.
  • Improved handling of winsock errors in hook DLL code.
  • Improved hook loading code so that the hook DLL will be loaded more quickly into processes which do not have any GUI showing.
  • Modified Ad Muncher's library loading code so it is compatible with Microsoft's new Windows 7 betas.
  • Improved the blank FLV replacement used to replace advert FLV content.
  • Improved automatic popup removal code.
  • Fixed a minor bug in the "prevent interference with mouse usage" option.
  • Fixed missing URL in page reports sent from the Opera browser extension. Also improved the options available under the "Frame" context menu.
  • Added an option to the right-click system tray menu to check for updates.
  • When blocking the retrieval of an MP3 file, Ad Muncher will now substitute a very short blank MP3 file. This will allow the adverts on some streaming services to be blocked.
  • Added an extra winsock hook so Ad Muncher can be notified immediately if a connection is aborted before it connects to Ad Muncher. This should avoid excessive resource usage and error messages in certain situations.
  • Ad Muncher's browser extensions for Firefox (v1.5+), Flock and SeaMonkey (v2.0+) are now installed and updated automatically by the installer. The "Browser extensions" tab of Ad Muncher's configuration window has now been removed because it is now not needed.
  • Fixed filtering of Website Watcher.
  • Fixed chrome error message from Firefox when the v2.0 browser extensions are first installed and when Firefox doesn't have write access to the installation directory.
  • Added a mailing list signup field to the last screen of the installer.
  • Fixed XML validation errors when removing Improved overlap correction of certain XML files for more reliable video ad removal.
  • Added prompt when IP Scramble is enabled to give the user details on how to upgrade to using Tor, a more recent and (in our opinion) much better way of browsing anonymously.
  • Added "Blocked by Ad Muncher" replacement video for when .WMV content is blocked, and improved the .FLV replacement.
  • Improved reliability of tag removal in XML content.
  • Improved the replacement of certain advert-critical .ASF files.
  • Fixed corruption of some AJAX-related data files.
  • Finished implementing a completely new popup blocking system, which relies more on in-browser script modifications rather than in-transit filtering, making for much more reliable blocking of popups and far less potential for page damage. This will significantly reduce the instances of interference on JavaScript-intensive sites, and also now allows popups to be blocked which have their scripts encrypted or otherwise obfuscated.
  • The new popup filtering system also includes the following changes:
  • - The blocking preferences have been simplified to just block all automatic popups, rather than the previous options to block during load, unload, mouseover and timer.
  • - There is now a new option to override popup blocking when the CTRL button is pressed.
  • - Because of how the new helper script works, we can now just insert it into the main HTML of each web site, rather than the HTML and all external JS files (as done previously), which will allow many sites to load more quickly.
  • - Now a single script block is inserted into HTML content, instead of the two or three used previously, which reduces the chance of interference.
  • - The old popup reporting system has been removed.
  • Added support for Opera v10 to the browser extensions.
  • Improved replacement content for some XML-based ads.
  • Improved packet alignment for XML filtering.
  • Fixed bad browser message when running new versions of Opera while the browser is configured to identify as IE.
  • Improved popup blocking logic to avoid interference with window opening via bookmarklets.
  • Modified popup blocking code to check all "Remove all popups from URL" filters against the URL of each new popup, and if matched it will block the popup.
  • Modified helper script to tolerate executing on sites that redefine the behavior of JavaScript arrays.
  • Fixed broken window moving/resizing redirection in the new helper script.
  • Fixed broken window.open parameters in certain situations.
  • Fixed broken onmouseover popup blocking in new helper in some situations.
  • Added some more useful diagnostic information to the error message when Ad Muncher's helper script detects a "very old" browser, so we can more easily fix situations where browsers are emulating other browsers.
  • Improved the method used to detect old browsers in the helper script, which will avoid some false positives and negatives.
  • Added error catching to the part of the helper that executes user- supplied JavaScript filters, so that a more helpful error message can be displayed.
  • Improved the method used for intercepting functions in the helper script, reducing the code size and reducing the chance of interference from other scripts.
  • Improved popup blocking to automatically block popups that are opened using global onclick/onmousedown/onmouseup/etc handlers.
  • Implemented a system in the helper to automatically detect background popups that are opened when the user clicks a valid link or form submit button.
  • Fixed broken "javascript:" links when the link contained a window.open function call as well as one or more escaped characters.
  • Added code to allow popups from global event handlers that attempt to read the URL of anchor targets, stop the event, then open their own popup with the same URL.
  • Fixed bug in the enforcement of the option to "Force new windows to the default width and height".
  • Improved the status bar message formatting when a popup or alert message is blocked so that a notification for both can be shown at the same time.
  • Implemented a new method of intercepting browser status bar modifications that is much more reliable and will prevent page damage in many situations. It will also prevent notifications of popup blocking from interfering with the display of link targets.
  • Because recent versions of all major browsers now block web sites from modifying the browser status bar, notifications of blocked popups are now also displayed at the end of the browser's title bar.
  • Fixed possible breakage of ".smi" files when removing advert content.
  • Implemented a solution for the removal of some popular video adverts.
  • Added "CDATA" tags around the CSS content added by Ad Muncher to prevent interference with XML content.
  • Improved the JavaScript error detection in the helper script so that the reports shown to the user include more details on what actually caused the error.
  • Fixed flickering browser title problem under IE6.
  • Fixed problem with writing CSS content from the helper script under Firefox 3.5.
  • Improved script performance when many events are registered via __amscript_addonload().
  • Reduced resource usage in the new helper script when working on pages with many timers.
  • Implemented a new system in the popup blocking code that will reduce the chance of incorrectly blocked popups, especially popups that are opened from inside flash content.
  • Adopted a new method for managing Ad Muncher's memory usage, resulting in a 20% increase in filtering speed on our test pages.
  • Implemented a new and much better algorithm for managing Ad Muncher's logs. With identical log buffer sizes, the new algorithm resulted in an increase in filtering speed of just over 50% on our test pages, which should provide a noticeable browsing speed boost on complex pages. Because of the significant decrease in log-related CPU usage, the options to skip uniqueness checks on the logs has been removed, along with the buffer size option. The "Disable logs" and "Pause logs" checkboxes have also been combined into a single "Enable" checkbox which will be remembered when the configuration window is closed.
  • Rewrote all of the mutex management code and reduced the mutex usage in several places to improve performance.
  • Fixed potential crash in filtering code.
  • Reduced the memory usage and startup time of the helper script.
  • Removed the option to "Prevent activity when a site is closed". This option was needed back when Ad Muncher's popup filtering had trouble with some onunload popups, but the new popup blocking has no problems in this situation and preventing unload activities these days causes more problems than benefits, eg: interfering with the ability on many sites to confirm exit before saving data, and also preventing the user from allowing certain desired onunload popups.
  • Implemented a new method of preventing interference with mouse usage (the third option on the "Advanced" options tab), which should result in less frequent interference with legitimate page behaviors.
  • Changed the handling of "Remove all popups from URL" slightly so that it now matches against the main site's URL, instead of the URL of any popup scripts that were included on the site. The handling is now also done in a more reliable way.
  • Improved the rewriting of "javascript:" URLs so that popups are not blocked when opened from bookmarklets.
  • Added code to automatically block popups that are sent to the background even if they don't trigger any other popup warning flags.
  • Modified how new popup windows are opened to improve popup blocking reliability in IE and Opera when the popup is on a different domain.
  • Fixed interference with drag/drop in Opera when the "Prevent interference with mouse usage" option was enabled.
  • Fixed misaligned "Clear" button on logs tab when window was resized.
  • Improved status and title management code in the helper to improve performance and reduce the chances of unwanted interference on pages with multiple frames or iframes.
  • Fixed broken browser extensions under the latest Opera 10 betas.
  • Improved popup blocking to work in cases where global event handlers have been installed in the parent window by an embedded frame or iframe.
  • When the "Apply" button is pressed on the configuration window the focus will now be moved to the "Close" button, to help people who use Ad Muncher along with screen reading software.
  • Fixed incorrect blocking of some popup windows when created with certain window names.
  • Fixed error in the code responsible for checking if "window.open" calls were referring to an existing window (instead of a new popup).
  • Modified the popup and alert message blocking so that it won't block either when created from within an Ad Muncher "Add JavaScript" filter, so that messages can be displayed from filters if needed.
  • Improved helper script insertion to work better on sites with invalid HTML.
  • Added extra sanity checks throughout the helper to reduce the chance of JavaScript errors occurring when other scripts on the page modify Ad Muncher's variables.
  • Implemented a workaround for a bug in Vista and Windows 7 which could cause the installation window to be minimized on start after the UAC prompt has been dismissed, or open behind other windows.
  • If Ad Muncher is currently filtering connections when the installer is run it will no longer show a second confirmation dialog to check if the user really wants to close Ad Muncher. Instead a warning has been added to the first "Do you want to close Ad Muncher for installation?" message. This change avoids window focus issues on some Vista and Windows 7 systems, and also speeds up installation a little.
  • Moved the log "Clear" button back to the bottom of the dialog, per user feedback.
  • Fixed window centering code so it works correctly when the parent window of a dialog is minimized. Particularly affected the "Check for updates" option in the tray menu.
  • Fixed incorrect insertion of the helper script into some XML files.
  • Further improved treatment of XML content.
  • Fixed possible JavaScript corruption when removing some references to external.AddFavorite().
  • Improved handling of global "onclick" handlers that open desirable popup windows based on non-standard attributes inside of anchor targets.
  • Fixed incorrect popup blocking in some situations when the window.open call referred to an existing window.
  • Fixed unexpected loss of log entries under some conditions in the new logging system.
  • Added the ability to disable the "Prevent interference with mouse usage" on certain URLs via our default filter list, so we can disable it on popular sites where it might cause interference and when the site doesn't actually block mouse usage.
  • Added the ability to force blank replacement of some content from the default filter list, to further enhance our ability to deal with rich media adverts.
  • Fixed possible IPC error message when installing Ad Muncher with certain antivirus programs running.
  • Fixed potential page damage when removing references to "document.referrer".
  • Improved "javascript:" url trapping to avoid potential JavaScript error messages in some situations.
  • Fixed possible corruption of the "this" context when trapping timer code from the helper script.
  • Fixed possible crash in filtering code.
  • Fixed possible crash in text replacing code.
  • Added support for premium/basic list updates (for a future reduced- price license).
  • Fixed possible incorrect detection of web bugs.
  • Fixed possible page damage in Firefox when the option to show the retrieved URL in the helper is enabled.
  • Made it possible for us to exclude certain sites from all HTTP header modifications so difficult sites can be restored to working order.
  • Fixed bug in DOMContentLoaded trap in the helper script under IE on some sites.
  • Fixed bug in filter list scanning code in helper script when matching against non-HTTP URLs.
  • Fixed bug in filter list scanning code in helper script when the keyword was found at the very start of the URL.
  • Fixed position of UAC prompt when launching the installer.
  • Fixed possible crash when entering new license details.
  • Changed the version number from v4.73 to v4.8 to better reflect the amount of work put into this release.



Endringer for v4.72 - v4.73 Build 30552 Beta

  • Improved helper script behavior to avoid possible interference with "onmousedown" event handling. This change also fixes the broken drag/drop handling in Opera.
  • Changed "Allow filtering enable/disable when locked" option to "Allow Ad Muncher to be closed or disabled when locked". Ad Muncher will now require a password to be closed if this option is disabled.
  • Improved handling of winsock errors in hook DLL code.
  • Improved hook loading code so that the hook DLL will be loaded more quickly into processes which do not have any GUI showing.
  • Modified Ad Muncher's library loading code so it is compatible with Microsoft's new Windows 7 betas.
  • Improved the blank FLV replacement used to replace advert FLV content.
  • Improved automatic popup removal code.
  • Fixed a minor bug in the "prevent interference with mouse usage" option.
  • Fixed missing URL in page reports sent from the Opera browser extension. Also improved the options available under the "Frame"´context menu.
  • Added an option to the right-click system tray menu to check for updates.



Endringer for v4.71 - v4.72

  • Fixed possible crash when "Allow popups" filters were used with a "%" character in the URL.
  • Fixed possible crash when using IP scramble.
  • Fixed conflict with video player on jmeeting.com.
  • Finished work on a Vista-friendly IPC system to allow patched programs to communicate with Ad Muncher when running at different privilege levels (e.g.: IE 7 in protected mode).
  • Added option, enabled by default, to remember lock status when Ad Muncher is closed.
  • Moved "Lost your code?" button from the about tab to directly underneath the code entry fields to help people find it.
  • Changed automatic update frequency check code so that it will include manual update attempts in the "last update check" time used. This should help avoid some unusual update check times people have been troubled by.
  • Improved submit() javascript function redirection to avoid some possibly incorrect redirections.
  • Simplified Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape browser extension, removing the configuration window. It will now rely on the browser extension password being stored in the registry by Ad Muncher.
  • Modified browser extension for Firefox/etc to work with Flock.
  • Fixed resource leak in connection routing code when a connect to loopback failed.
  • Fixed bug in config.dat writer that could cause some errors to not be detected.
  • Fixed bug in license.dat writer that could cause some fields to not be deleted correctly when they should be.
  • Improved registration handling so that Ad Muncher will automatically attempt to verify its license if license.dat is deleted or the first time each version is run so that it won't just sit there with a red icon until it's used.
  • Finished work on a new installation system for v4.72, written from scratch with reliability, compatibility and minimal footprint in mind. Some new features are detailed below.
  • New installer layout adopted that more closely matches what people expect an installer to look like, making it more intuitive to use.
  • Implemented Vista-compatible "Bouncer" system, where two copies of AM-Install.exe are running while installing, one with elevated privileges and the other running as the user that launched it, allowing the installer to perform user-specific operations like launching Ad Muncher after the installation completes.
  • Custom storage locations for all of Ad Muncher's configuration files are now supported, with their locations being stored in Install.ini in the program folder. This now allows for per-user or system-wide configuration, as well as legacy support for storing the settings in the program files folder if needed.
  • Improved commission-tracking code, which now stores a unique ID identifying where the installer was downloaded from inside the installer EXE file itself, rather than as part of the filename, to mitigate the possibility of the filename being modified and the commission code being lost.
  • Installation progress is now displayed while installing, rather than simply pausing the display while operations are performed.
  • Error reporting is vastly improved in the new installer, in most cases providing a description that should be helpful to the user in diagnosing the problem.
  • A true silent mode has been added, where command line options can be used to install, upgrade or uninstall Ad Muncher without any interface appearing, even if an error occurs (unlike the previous silent mode), with the option of logging errors and warnings to a file.
  • A new "Upgrade" mode was added, which is used by Ad Muncher when it is installing an updated version retrieved via the update system. This new mode avoids asking any of the preference questions it already has answers to (like where to install Ad Muncher, the license agreement, etc) and generally streamlines the update process.
  • Many bugs in the old installer were corrected, including one where an empty program folder could be left behind when uninstalling under Windows 9x (note to other programmers who may be googling: wininit.ini doesn't support directory deletion on reboot).
  • Removed option to set Ad Muncher to launch on startup from within Ad Muncher's configuration window. This option can now be set from within the installer to avoid having to elevate to a higher integrity level under Vista.
  • The installer will now remember the preferences used so that they don't need to be chosen again when reinstalling.
  • Moved Opera browser extension installer to the Ad Muncher installer EXE (from the separate EXE that was invoked by AdMunch.exe), again to avoid having to elevate to a higher integrity level under Vista.
  • Despite the added features and bug fixes, the new installer will actually have a smaller footprint than the previous one, thanks in part to a new packaging system which extracts and runs AdMunch.exe with command line options telling it to behave as the installer, which means that a lot of code shared between Ad Muncher and the installer is now only present in a single EXE file. The final v4.72 release should be around 20% smaller than v4.71.
  • The Ad Muncher help file is no longer bundled with Ad Muncher. Instead when help is requested an online help system will be opened in the browser, allowing us to keep the help file updated, allowing Google toindex it and reducing the download size for the vast majority of people who don't use the help file.
  • Added 48x48 icon to the installer to improve the appearance when saved to the desktop under Vista.
  • Added code to the IPC system in the installer to allow it to read certain files from the context of the bouncer. This will avoid a problem under Vista where the installer could not read its own EXE file if it was executed from a network share then elevated to under an account which didn't have access to that share.
  • Added code to allow Ad Muncher to modify the security permissions on license.dat and registration.dat so it is writable from all user accounts under Vista.
  • Fixed race condition in registration dialog that could cause a blank "check status" window to appear.
  • Added code so that the installer will automatically locate and import any configuration files stored in Windows Vista's "virtual store" whenupgrading from a previous version.
  • The registration name and code are now stored in a separate file,registration.dat, which is stored locally in the common app data folder. This allows for the main configuration files to be stored in a roaming app data folder without automatically registering all computers it is used on with the same code.
  • If a configuration file is corrupt it now won't be deleted, instead the content will be erased but the file will be left intact, so that any modified security permissions are maintained.
  • Implemented some backup mechanisms for finding the various appdata folders under Windows NT 4. Not entirely happy with how they all work, but haven't been able to find the perfect solution. If anyone knows how to find the common appdata folder under a fresh NT4 install (no service packs) please let us know (SHGetSpecialFolderLocation and normal registry locations not working, registry search for "all users" also brought up nothing useful).
  • Removed "[Moo! 1000th Ad Munched]" advert replacement (used to be displayed every 1000 removals), didn't think it was entirely appropriate for corporate environments.
  • Added separate option to the load/save/reset configuration tab to allow users to choose whether the registration details are loaded, saved or reset along with their other settings.
  • Modified the Opera browser extensions installer to also install when Ad Muncher is starting (not just when Ad Muncher is installed) to account for Opera installations after Ad Muncher is first installed. This will only work if AdMunch.exe has write access to the appropriate locations, but it will degrade gracefully if not.
  • Fixed bug in Install.ini saving code that could cause blank fields to not be correctly saved.
  • Improved Install.ini saving code to save the fields to the file in a more logical order.
  • Moved browser extension startup code into its own thread to reduce Ad Muncher's startup time.
  • Added some extra path sanity checks to the installer to make sure it never modifies anything it shouldn't.
  • Fixed lack of synchronize flag when setting shared file permissions.
  • Modified directory creation in the installer to set global read/write access to the Ad Muncher section of the common appdata folder. By default Vista only allows write access to the directory's creator which would otherwise prevent sharing of settings.
  • Fixed possible crash in CPUID handling code.
  • Added code to flush the shell icon cache for particular files when creating links to avoid incorrect icons being displayed in the start menu folder.
  • Fixed crash in the new uninstaller when clicking the "Back" button in certain situations.
  • Modified the uninstaller to not delete the registry entry which remembered the previous installation path when the "Remove Ad Muncher configuration files" option is disabled.
  • Fixed incorrect default install path when a previous version of Ad Muncher had been configured to disable the built-in chat client.
  • Fixed bug in IE browser extensions uninstaller that could leave entries behind in certain situations (thanks Noctem).
  • Fixed misaligned "Lost your code?" button on "About" tab when window was resized.
  • Fixed broken WSAConnect filtering (thanks Lukian).
  • Improved IPC system to avoid possible erroneous communication between different builds of Ad Muncher.
  • Fixed IPC-5 error on some Vista machines.
  • Fixed hook loading problem under Windows 9x.
  • Fixed failure when setting security permissions when running on a non- English version of Vista.
  • Fixed fault reporting failure on some Vista machines.
  • Fixed possible problems when launching Ad Muncher after installing on some Vista machines.
  • Fixed possible erroneous detection of temp path when downloading and launching Ad Muncher updates.
  • Added extra code to the fault reporting HTML to avoid odd behavior when opened in IE7 under Vista.
  • Changed Load/Save/Reset tab to have all section options enabled by default, as this is what most people will actually be doing.
  • Modified configuration importing code to write the content to configuration files without first deleting them so that any security permissions are retained.
  • Improved security permissions assigning function so it can be called multiple times without adding duplicate access control elements, allowing Ad Muncher to verify required write permissions on configuration files when needed.
  • Added a more useful error message if the UAC prompt is declined when installing under Vista.
  • Fixed lack of "Ad Muncher" submenu in IE browser extensions under IE 7.
  • Improved installer to automatically remove empty directories when the option for where to store the configuration files is changed.
  • Changed text on registration/trial start dialog to clarify that the 30-day trial is free of charge.
  • Fixed some cosmetic title case problems on push buttons.
  • Improved file enumeration code to avoid possible problems when deleting files using a wildcard.
  • Added button to import configuration to the trial start/registration dialog.
  • Modified automatic refresh removal to not remove meta refreshes that have a timeout of one second or less, which are used on microsoft.com for some kind of server farm bouncing, and when removed could cause a blank page to appear instead of the actual content.
  • Added extra code to avoid crashes when working alongside some buggy Windows message hooks.
  • Fixed crash after a large number of processes had been logged to the filter targets activity logs.
  • Reduced startup time significantly.
  • Fixed potential crash in the installer.
  • Added code to check for leftover DLLs from very early versions of Ad Muncher to avoid potential conflicts.
  • Added code to the Vista virtual store configuration importing function so that if more than one old configuration file is found, the oldest one is deleted before importing begins. This is done to avoid potentially importing the older one if the importing function is called more than once (for example when uninstalling/reinstalling) with unexpected results.
  • Fixed browsing problems when another program overwrote Ad Muncher's winsock hooks and Ad Muncher tried to restore them.
  • Modified the "Programs are currently routed through Ad Muncher" message on shutdown to ensure it doesn't get obscured by other windows when installing Ad Muncher.
  • Fixed incorrect error handling in some mutex code.
  • Improved patching system reliability.
  • Fixed IPC error when using "Run as" to launch Ad Muncher as a different user under XP.
  • Added code to avoid a conflict with the menus on box.net.
  • Changed messagebox handling code to avoid the possibility of some critical messages being obscured by other windows.
  • Fixed outdated homepage link in Firefox browser extension, andclarified the error displayed if an outdated extension is used with a newer version of Ad Muncher.
  • Fixed bug where "Add to list" button on logs tab would not be enabled when entries were highlighted using the search function.
  • Betas will now be forced to use daily update checks to ensure that important fixes are distributed quickly.
  • Fixed flawed title rendering in the installer when using non-standard Windows color schemes.
  • Modified messagebox display code to always include the Ad Muncher icon so it's obvious which program is showing it.
  • Fixed incorrect dialog display when the "Import Configuration" button was clicked on the registration dialog when the configuration dialog was already open.
  • Added code to save the entered email address when reporting adverts using the browser extensions so it doesn't need to be entered every time.
  • Added code to report IPC errors to the user from within the hook DLL to help catch some browser lockups that may be caused by mutex deadlocks.
  • Fixed incorrect mutex error handling in some parts of Ad Muncher.
  • Fixed possible crash when updating the default filter list.
  • Added code to display an alternate crash report if a crash occurs outside of Ad Muncher's code. These reports are almost always the result of buggy firewalls or AV products, so the message includes some tips on resolving the issue.
  • Improved the file extraction functions used by the installer, speeding up extraction and avoiding some possibly incorrect "insufficient space" error messages.
  • Improved command line option handling in installer to read any supplied configuration files from the context of the un-elevated installer process to avoid possible access issues (particularly on network drives) when elevating under Vista.
  • Added option for configuration exporting to include the installation preferences used when installing Ad Muncher, and added "/C" option to the installer to import a .AMC configuration file, including the new installation preferences. Configurations for network deployment can now be stored in a single file.
  • Changed automatic license check when Ad Muncher is updated to a new major release so it happens without showing the license check dialog if possible.
  • Finished updating the help system to use the new online Wiki, with context sensitivity so it jumps to the appropriate Wiki page based on where you are in Ad Muncher's configuration window.
  • Reduced CPU usage in patch verification code, and modified the windows hook handler so it will verify Ad Muncher's patches are in place whenever a window message is handled. This should help avoid some problems with other programs overwriting Ad Muncher's patches.
  • Added text to the browser extensions dialog clarifying that the password is no longer required due to several enquiries about this.
  • Fixed erroneous "Fault Outside AM" message when a program lockup was detected.
  • Improved CallNextHookEx hook handle passing under NT-based versions of Windows.
  • Modified IPC error reporting in hook DLL to only report errors if the error would definitely prevent a connection from being filtered.
  • Fixed possible lockup when verifying the license by clicking on the "Verify license" button on the "About" tab.
  • Added error message when a failure is encountered when opening a URL in the browser (for example when clicking a link in Ad Muncher's configuration dialog), with the URL that was being opened included in the message, to help deal with incorrectly installed browsers.
  • Minimized the amount of code executed within the hook DLL mutex to improve performance and avoid possible deadlocks.
  • Modified manifest information to allow XP visual styles to affect Ad Muncher.
  • Fixed delayed progress bar updates in the installer under Vista Aero.
  • Fixed possible lack of filtering if a timeout occurs when communicating between the hook DLL and the parent Ad Muncher process when the system is under heavy load.
  • Fixed possible crash when updating the default filter list.
  • Fixed possible crash when verifying license on a fresh installation.
  • Fixed possible interference with other windows hooks on NT-based windows systems.
  • Added version information to all EXE and DLL files in Ad Muncher.
  • Fixed conflict with Haute Secure.
  • Fixed possible crash if a stack overflow occurred while in the fault trapping code.
  • Fixed possible javascript damage.
  • Fixed bug in treatment of SWF filenames.
  • Added warning to the "Live chat and tech support" system noting that it is a public channel and what is said can be seen by other Ad Muncher users.
  • Added code to mark ops on the "Live chat and tech support" with a "@" prefix to help people see which users are developers.
  • Fixed delayed closure of the "Live chat and tech support" connection if the configuration window were closed without disconnecting.
  • Modified "Block retrieval of URL" filter handling so that blocked ".flv" files will have their content replaced with a "Blocked by Ad Muncher" message, simplifying the handling of many video-based ads.
  • Fixed potential page stalling when blocking SWF content.
  • Fixed possible crash when walking the function call stack from within the memory allocation handler.
  • Fixed possible crash when loading corrupted license information.
  • Fixed possible lockup when a 0x08 byte was present in a filter keyword.
  • Improved file type detection in referrer changing code.
  • Fixed possible failure to correctly reset corrupted configuration files.
  • Vastly improved the filtering speed when "Replace text" filters are present. Also added a new filter category to the default filter list so that replace text filters can be used in it when needed.
  • Changed update system to use a new ID for v4.72 filter list updates, because now that "replace text" filters can be added the list can't be used with older Ad Muncher releases without breaking some sites.
  • Modified "Replace Text" filters to work on all content that has a content type starting with "Text/" so that many AJAX replies can now be modified when needed to remove advert content.
  • Added code to stop Ad Muncher from modifying anything inside the ICQ process if any Secway Simp software is loaded to avoid crashes when Simp attempts to modify the patched functions.
  • Fixed weird tab behavior if you clicked the "About" option from the system tray menu while scanning for proxies on the IP Scramble tab.
  • Modified helper script generation to compact all filters in the default list onto one line to minimize the vertical space taken up when viewing a web site's HTML.
  • Modified FLV content blocking so that if the option to "Change "[Blocked by Ad Muncher]" text" is enabled then it will replace it with a blank FLV video rather than the short "Ad Muncher blocked this video ad" one.
  • Made it possible to enable the options to "Change referrer field to new site's domain" and "Insert referrer field when none is present" at the same time.
  • Added a new filter category to the default filter list, "Replace text content type", which will enable replace text filters on the specified content types. This will allow us to deal with many new video ads without having to update the filtering engine for different content types.
  • Fixed failure to log process names in the "Programs that made connections" list if they were not targeted in the filter targets list.
  • Removed the Secway workaround added in build 30311 as it was resulting in a complete lack of filtering on some systems where Simp was loaded into the browsers Ad Muncher was patching.
  • Modified filter target list handling so that if a process is explicitly not filtered on all ports (eg: -iexplore:*) then no patching at all will be done in its process. This can now be used to avoid possible conflicts with SimpLite or SimpPro when they attempt to modify Ad Muncher's patches by adding something like -icq:* to the filter targets list of affected systems.
  • Improved FLV blank content replacement.
  • Changed default setting to "off" for the "Modify browser requests to disable caching" option. Automatic Internet Explorer cache clearing is still on by default so hopefully this option shouldn't be needed in most cases.
  • Removed some code that was added to monitor certain parts of Ad Muncher's buffers for erroneous access (haven't triggered in years), which should result in slightly faster filtering.
  • Fixed crash when a referrer field replacement was configured which contained a percentage character ('%').
  • Implemented a better method of tracking whether a popup has been initiated as the result of an onmousedown trigger. This negates the need for changes to the onmousedown attributes in HTML tags, which was responsible for some weird behavior on facebook.com.
  • Added filter category for the default list, "No filtering on content", allowing us to avoid filtering on specific content without excluding entire pages.
  • Fixed bug that could cause Ad Muncher to load an incompatible list type from its configuration files.
  • Repackaged as a final release.



Endringer for v4.7 Build 27105 - v4.71

  • Most significant changes: We are almost done making Ad Muncher Vista compatible, but are releasing this version before full support has been implemented in order to distribute some important bug fixes. Another release will be made shortly, named v4.72, which will include some final changes to make Ad Muncher completely Vista compatible.
  • 27172/F - Fixed bug that could cause Ad Muncher to corrupt registry settings used to launch Ad Muncher on startup, causing it to not launch automatically after the configuration was modified on certain systems.
  • 27173/F - Loosened lockup detection criteria to avoid some false detections.
  • 27174/F - Fixed possible corruption of registration details that could cause Ad Muncher to crash.
  • 27175/E - Improved Ad Muncher's startup time on system boot, decreasing the chances of any unfiltered content being let through before Ad Muncher is ready.
  • 27189/F - Fixed resource leak in socket routing that could cause further connections to go unfiltered or be blocked in certain situations.
  • 27223/E - Added code to trap faults in previously unmonitored portions of code.
  • 27310/F - Fixed page load stalling that could result from HTTP 304 replies with content length headers.
  • 27447/F - Improved handling of malformed HTML comments.
  • 27359/E - Added "Don't show in future" option to the "Update installation complete" dialog.
  • 27505/E - Improved HTML tag analysis during helper script insertion.
  • 27506/E - Improved blocked page content replacement behavior.
  • 27700/E - Finished implementing a new system to manage trial periods and registration installation counts, which utilizes a short "hash" of the hardware configuration to differentiate computers. This system took some time to complete but is fully Vista-compatible, unlike the previous registration tracking system, and will more accurately manage the 30-day trial period.
  • 27707/E - Added system to store certain configuration settings in a seperate "dat" file (License.dat). This information includes the license info retrieved from the Ad Muncher server as well as the most recent advert list. This was done so that in restricted environments Ad Muncher's configuration file (Config.dat) can be set to read-only or protected with some other mechanism without stopping normal Ad Muncher functionality.
  • 27801/E - Improved compilation process to avoid some unnecessary space wastage in Ad Muncher's code.
  • 27810/E - Improved performance of some critical string library functions.
  • 27850/E - Improved method used when compiling helper script, increasing performance and increasing the number of filters that can be used.
  • 27854/F - Fixed crashes under Windows NT4.
  • 27857/F - Fixed possible race condition during shutdown that could cause a crash.
  • 27903/F - Fixed page stalling when certain kinds of "HEAD" requests were filtered.
  • 27904/E - Modified filtering engine to fail more gracefully if it encounters an encoding method it can't handle.
  • 27905/F - Fixed possible crash after routing a large number of connections.
  • 27907/F - Fixed typo on new "alternate method" dialog.
  • 27908/F - Added horizontal scrolling to URL edit box on "alternate method" dialog so it can be copy/pasted if necessary.
  • 27909/F - Fixed possible javascript error when generating helper script.
  • 27944/F - Fixed the random crashes some people have experienced in the early betas.
  • 27957/F - Fixed bug where multiple copies of the same update could be requested by the update system in the same session.
  • 27958/E - Added extra error checks and sanity checks to the update system to prevent any update attempts failing silently.
  • 27977/E - Improved overlap correction to prevent some replies being delayed awaiting more content when they don't need to be.
  • 27982/E - Removed the "Avoid binding to loopback" option, because it was causing far more problems than it was solving.
  • 27996/F - Fixed bug in licensing dialogs that could cause them to appear twice, sometimes crashing the program.
  • 28000/E - Added confirmation dialog when disabling automatic updates.
  • 28055/F - Fixed crash in latest betas when routing buffer size was set to 64kb.
  • 28061/E - Added dialog that will display once if updates are disabled, describing the benefits of automatic updates to the user.
  • 28070/E - Split one mutex used by several bits of code into several different ones to reduce unnecessary locking, and also prevent a possible deadlock when updating the advert filter list manually.
  • 28077/E - Made some improvements to how the filter list boxes are initialized to reduce the time taken to render large lists on the configuration window.
  • 28078/F - Fixed control disabling bug on updates tab.
  • 28079/E - Updated v4.71 to use a different advert list update type than v4.7. A bug has been identified in v4.7 that causes it to crash if lists (custom or default) are used with "add javascript to all pages" and "add css to all pages" filters over a certain size. Recent default lists have started to exceed this limit, so to prevent further crashes no further updates to v4.7's filter list will be released.
  • 28082/F - Fixed possible page stalling when interpreting downloaded image dimensions.
  • 28085/E - Changed where Ad Muncher stores its temporary update files to avoid problems with UAC under Vista.
  • 28088/E - Added Vista manifest to installer exe to require admin rights.
  • 28103/E - Changed how cpuid code is handled to avoid problems caused by inconsistent cpuid results from some Athlon 64 processors.
  • 28109/F - Made changes to how Ad Muncher's default filter list is initialized to avoid lockups when updating the list manually.
  • 28123/F - Made further changes to default list initialization to avoid lockups.
  • 28126/E - Improved integrity checks used with Ad Muncher's buffers.
  • 28127/E - Changed wording of the welcome dialog in Ad Muncher's installer.
  • 28140/F - Fixed possible javascript insertion problem in the helper script when retrieving specially-crafted URLs.



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