David Roberts

StopAd PRO — The ultimate ad blocker for Windows and Mac.

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StopAd is the ultimate ad blocker for Windows and Mac. This simple, out-of-the-box solution stops all pop-ups, banners, autoplay, and video ads in apps and browsers. Plus, StopAd includes anti-tracking, anti-malware, and anti-cryptomining security features.

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Eric
Pros: Nothing, just use ublock origin Cons: Also nothing
Kristina Zakharchenko
@terterihei Have you tried StopAd?) We have nothing (I see, you like this word:) against ublock. But - we have users who moved from ublock to StopAd. Maybe they like that StopAd is an app (not an extension, like ublock) - you install it once and it blocks ads everywhere on your device. Maybe, because StopAd (unlike ublock) has 24/7 support and custom rules creating. Check it, if you want.
Eric
Thanks for replying, but: 1. why is an app better than an extension? 2. who even needs 24/7 support for adblocker? 3. ublock also does custom rules creating, umatrix also has it 2. where do you get your filter lists from? why shouldn't anyone think that you just copy the open source filter lists?
Iegor Nikolaiev
@terterihei Hey Eric, 1. because it blocks ads in all browsers at once and in other apps, obviously 2. The most interesting part - a lot, I tell you this as a person who regularly talks to our current early adopters directly. For example, ad blockers don't manage to block FB ads when FB ad serving algo changes, if something like this happens with StopAd, people adress the issue in the chat and it gets fixed in a few hours. 3. This is a really cool feature and it is especially helpful for advanced users. 4. We use combination of open-source filter list with our own filters and it works seemlesly in a synergy. Right now we're working hard to populate our own proprietary filter base with help of AI which is finding ads on sites with an active ad blocker+open-source filter on
Mattan Ingram
@terterihei The main benefit of an app over an extension is blocking ads in apps that aren't browsers. That being said I'm not sure I want to add another monthly subscription.
Muhammad Vaid
@terterihei @mattaningram Can you give me an example of an app it would be useful on?
Vladimir Sytnikov
Aloha, Product Hunters! Thanks, @davidrlroberts, for featuring us! I am Vladimir, General Manager at StopAd, and I’m happy to show you guys what we’ve created here and why. Like you, we live our lives online. We shop online, pay our bills online and have quick chats with friends. But over the past few years, we noticed that web surfing became way too cluttered. Instead of getting frustrated, we got to work. But we don’t want to tell you what we think you need to see online—“Hi, Chrome Ad Filter”—or what we were paid to show you— “Hello, ABP acceptable ads!” Instead, we give you a powerful tool to choose for yourself which ads you see and which you don’t. That’s why we created StopAd—an uncompromised ad blocker which stops all kinds of annoying ads and data trackers without exception. It also stops malware and phishing websites from stealing your personal data and halts browser-based cryptocurrency mining. Install StopAd once, and it’ll stop ads on: all major browsers, including Chrome, Firefox (forthcoming on Mac), Edge, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari; YouTube and Facebook; games and applications, like Skype. But we are far from done with innovating the best ad blocker in the world! Give us a try and share your feedback here. I’ll be here with my team all day long monitoring your comments and questions—so fire up :) Thanks in advance! P.S. If you decide to try StopAd—grab a free additional month of StopAd PRO. Just follow this link: https://stopad.io/y/pro-special Thanks a bunch, and we look forward to your feedback!
Artem Pryadkin
@julianmiller Maybe it gets sent to spam? If it's not there please contact us on our Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/StopAdO...), we will send you a new key.
Marko Nykoliuk

works perfectly in all browsers on my Mac and in Safari on my iPhone, protecting my nervous system from the most dreadful thing in the world – mobile popups :)

also, they've got some awesome content on their blog about the advertising industry and the modern internet in general!

Pros:

blocks ads on all my devices

Cons:

I might miss an interesting ad (? highly doubtful)

Kristina Zakharchenko
Thanks, Marko!
Howard Gerkings
Is it better than ABP?
Iegor Nikolaiev
@hairynails Hey Howard, it def is. We don't participate in "acceptable ads" and we do block all types of ads in all major browsers and even in other apps. Since StopAd works straight out of the box, we block absolutely all ads by default but you can allow certain types of ads in the settings. If you would have some issue with our app functioning - just adress it to our support chat and you will receive answer just in a few minutes, no matter what time of day it is. And yes, we block FB and youtube ads way better, than ABP. Try it yourself and let me know :)
Pedro J. Martínez
@hairynails @egorka_edge IMHO better ads standards is meant to be a intermediary between publishers and users. I don't want publishers to end up asking us for memberships and acceptable ads just don't bother me that bad. So I'm sorry but I'm not supporting any product which doesn't participate in "acceptable ads", some of which may even interest me.
Iegor Nikolaiev
@inthe0n Look, Intheon, we put it this way: the only people who decide what ads are acceptable should be only the users. There is a beautiful ecosystem, where publishers, brands, ad tech and even big ad blockers with their extortion based 'acceptable ads' business model play their role and lastly - carriers, who earn more money from ads loading than publishers them selves. There is only one actor who doesn't have the right to influence the game anyhow - it is the user. A user is only being reviewed as an asset, not a shareholder. We think this is the most unfair part of the whole story. We let users to decide, which types of ads or certain sites to whitelist and to support. ABP is proud that 90% of their users don't opt out of 'acceptable ads'. That's just because it's opt out and the interface isn't user friendly enough to opt-out, on purpose. So, it's you who either chooses for yourself or delegates that to pretty biased third-parties. I can only promise you that if you try our app, it would deliver on what being promised
Pedro J. Martínez
@egorka_edge so here's my suggestion. Create an actually public acceptable ads list, which everyone can see and vote or use an existing one which doesn't rely on third parties but users, and then recommend to use this list on your app. Otherwise this is gonna end up really bad for users, that's why Google —mostly an ad company— just realeased out its own adblocker based on better ads standars so people stop using unfair adblockers. Yeah, there's some kind of extortion around 'acceptable ads' but, since you guys have a pro version available and is not a non-profit company, you're now making profit thanks to them, so here is the thing: membership for publishers or membership for blocking publishers earnings. It is just unfair and not a good deal neither for the users nor for the publishers, this is not good for anyone:) There Are unfair ads, but there're unfair ad blockers too.
Vladimir Sytnikov
@egorka_edge @inthe0n Generally your idea is impressive. We did hundred of users interviews with different models, but what we found out is that people usually do not want to accept any ads, even "acceptable" ones. That what happens when you want to get easy money by bombarding people with tons of ads every day for 5-7 years. Powerful publishers who work on decent content will never lose their audience and money from subscriptions, sponsored content and cross-marketing activities. Mediators, agencies, reposters, cheap and fake news sites will struggle, but we know that this is the fate of all so-so products. Google's move is just the next step to kill all other ad networks. That's the strategy they are stick to for many years.
Yuriy Nos

One license for the Internet-free experience regardless the device you use. Much better technology comparing to Browser Extensions resulted in a very efficient blocking of FB, Youtube and literally all types of ads.

Pros:

Blocks Everything Everywhere, no "Acceptable Ads" BS

Cons:

It's paid

Becky Ross
Cool app. Does it really block ads on Youtube?
Kristina Zakharchenko
@beckyross Yes! Just try it - and you will see)
Reony T
@beckyross @kristina_zagorulko I personally don't like this because I care about people I follow on YouTube, and they get paid for the great content they provide us through monetization... At least I pay for YouTube Red and I don't worry about ads on YT.
Iegor Nikolaiev
@beckyross @kristina_zagorulko @megaroeny Hey Reony, StopAd has a possibility to whitelist certain types of ads or even a specific site. We leave it to the users - if you want to support content creators on YT - you've got it under control with StopAd. And besides that, Youtube shares less ad revenues with content creators as time goes by, so it's far more profitable today for vloggers to make promotional integrations with brands directly. We think that's a way better form of advertising. It is more of a recommendation from a youtube influencer to his audience, not a retargeted video ad that follows you through all of your devices multiple days in a row
Kristina Zakharchenko
@megaroeny thank you for your interest!
Olga Grytsenko
@megaroeny by the way, there are YouTube creators that support StopAd :) Take a look at this viral video, that was created by The Danocracy in collaboration with us and gained 2,2M views https://youtu.be/3vU1Ms0ZFjI
E.T.Cook

Despite StopAd's persistent protestations when I connected with them through their live chat, this app breaks a significant number of your apps, sites, etc. Even basic functions like logging in were broken for many sites, on both Safari and Chrome. StopAd annoyingly insisted each time I reached out to them that it was not their application, although every single time, the issue was immediately resolved after disabling StopAd.

The final straw, however, was when I realized it broke my VPNs. When I connected to either Nord or VPN Unlimited, I could no longer reach any sites. I reached out to StopAd to request information on how to properly uninstall to isolate the issue and see if StopAd was the culprit. Even though I was hit with the refrain of "It's not StopAd," I insisted on getting the removal instructions.

Lo and behold, the second I uninstalled StopAd, *poof* everything worked again. The VPNs were operational again.. Note: if you used the browser extensions, it seemed to pipe things through without issue, but if you used the system wide VPN, I wasn't able to visit any sites so it is related to the way StopAd intercepts/proxies the connection to work its "magic."

Most importantly, though, although it did work with applications beyond just the browsers, it was no more effective than extensions like uBlock - which has the added benefit of not having any idle CPU usage. I simply don't understand what the value add is. With the monthly fee, you're far better off getting a VPN subscription that has its own ad/tracker blocker like Nord. Combined with uBlock, you're more secure and have system wide blocking.

The persistent issues, deflection by support, cpu footprint and seeming incompatibility with VPN make this one to avoid, especially with the existing alternatives that already exist.

Pros:

Cross application support, live chat

Cons:

High CPU, expensive, breaks VPN, breaks certain apps, breaks a multitude of websites

Denis Parkhomenko
Hi, thank you for your feedback. Apologies for the negative experience you had using StopAd. We’re continuously improving our technology so we would be thankful to you if you could send us your system information and sites/apps that was crashed. Regarding the VPN issues - we are working on fixing them now. The value of StopAd in comparison with extensions is in effective ads removal on all browsers and apps without multiple installs.
Oleg Rogachov

This app blocks ads anywhere - apps, websites, etc. Actually the best adblocker that I've used ever. Using it for like a week on a windows pc.

Pros:

Blocks everything

Cons:

None at the moment

Kristina Zakharchenko
Thank you!
Sam Ayres

I'm surprised no one has brought up the high resting CPU usage of this app, doesn't drop below 12% even when you're not browsing. (Or it is that way for me, at least)

Although a cool implementation of an existing idea, I think making this a monthly subscription is a shot in the foot. There are many good adblockers that do most if not all of the same job for free.

We have all experienced a good app with annoying ads, but it'd actually be cheaper to buy the app's premium version than to use this subscription..

Should be a one off payment; If this is to facilitate 24/7 support I'd reduce how much it costs and replace it with a faq page.

Pros:

It works in apps

Cons:

High CPU & Pricing structure

Artem Pryadkin
Hi Sam, Thanks for your feedback! 1) That's very strange case that you have such CPU usage rate, in a resting state it should be about 0-10% based on what we measured for both Mac and Windows platforms. We would be very thankful to you if you could send us your system information and logs via Improve StopAd button in the application so we could investigate this case. 2) I suppose you're speaking about popular browser extensions. Here is why we believe StopAd is more valuable for our users: - There are no extentions which block ads in installed applications. - There are no extensions where you can get quick help and easily remove new banner ad on your favorite website at 2am whenever you are - We don't participate in "acceptable ads" - We created a unique AI technology which finds new ads and creates new rules so you never see these ads. We did a lot of users interviews and based on users feedback we know that StopAd blocks ads much better than any extensions. We are professional ad blocker. Simple, reliable and uncompromised. For users who are not ready to pay for StopAd PRO we have a free version which works perfectly only in one chosen browser.
E.T.Cook
@artem_pryadkin why in the world would an ad blocker need to idle @ 0-10%?!?!?
Brant Scales
Do you have the mobile version?
Kristina Zakharchenko
@scalesbrant We have the mobile version for Android and IOS. It doesn't include the security features (yet). You can install it here for free:https://stopad.io/android or https://stopad.io/ios
Reony T
@scalesbrant @kristina_zagorulko curious how this will be versus the upcoming built-in Chrome ad blocker :)
Iegor Nikolaiev
@scalesbrant @kristina_zagorulko @megaroeny welp it won't be a real ad blocker, rather an ad filter https://blog.chromium.org/2018/0... so if a site owner got "bad ads" on his site he will receive warning to remove those within 30 days and only after that his ads on that specific site might be blocked. You def don't think pop-unders on most visited adult sites would be removed for instance, do you? :) Because it is such a massive share of their monetization, it just won't happen
Nicolas Proc

I think that StopAd is such a great application to have.

It is ways different than the extensions you can find on every web browsers, and it makes you feel free to navigate without getting contaminated by ads all the time. It also block ads comming directly from facebook, which is the only adblocker I found doing that.

Their 24/7 support live chat is just amazing, I had an issue with some ads still popping which was created by interference between two adblockers I had, the advisor helped me, solved my problem within 5 minutes, was really respectful, and that is clearly unique, whatever you live, you know that you can get some answers quickly.

They seems to work hardly for their adblocker, and you guys better give it a try before making any opinion.

Pros:

It blocks every ads from every websites

Cons:

----

Iegor Nikolaiev
thanks so much for the feedback! So happy to read reviews like this and we'll try our best not to dissapoint you, Nicolas, ever :)
Oksana Savchenko

The main purpose of this app - to block annoying advertising, and it he copes with the task perfectly :)

Pros:

Very useful thing!

Cons:

none

Juho S
My current configuration: Ghostery (open source privacy) + uBlock (open source, light adblock) + AdGuard (very effective mobile adblock) --> no tempation to switch based on your current product What would make consider switching: add features that progress my goal towards digital minimalism lifestyle: - Browser: limit minutes I can use time wasting sites such as fb, linkedin, news, youtube. One effective way is to allow user visit the site but blocking the endless content feed - Mobile: suggest a less tech savy user to uninstall the obtrusive native applications in favor of the mobile site versions, then help the user to take control how much he/she spends on these sites (funny quirk would be to offer better ways to spend time) - Visualize based on data from my browser + mobile usage: how much time I am wasting, how much data I saved total, how much resources less your solution uses compared to my current configuration, how much am I wasting time compared to other members in the community (my age, gender, industry), what you could have easily completed the past 1,6,12 months if you had decreased the number of wasted minutes by 50% (university course worth of language studies, learn to play la la land theme song on piano etc.) - Emphasize: you will never use or sell my data, thus the monthly fee. Alternatively you can switch to free version where you reserve the right to sell some data to finance the operations
Kristina Zakharchenko
@juhslk Thanks for your comment, Juho! I'll transmit your suggestions to our team. You use 3 programs for ad blocking! Not too much? And how does it affect your system?
Vladimir Sytnikov
@juhslk, Thank you for a great product features backlog. During last 9 months, our team was focused on bringing to the market the best tool to stop all types of ads. We'll definitely add some gamification and even more entertainment. As for your "bundle" try to check it vs. StopAd. You can also check out our Android version.
Juho S
@kristina_zagorulko uBlock is the lightest blocker out there, practically no effect on resource usage. Ghostery might not be the lightest extension out there, however it is unrivaled with the privacy protection they provide Adguard on the other hand I only use on my mobile and it works like a charm
Ryan Roberts
My question is this… why should we trust StopAd?
Kristina Zakharchenko
@ryan_roberts1 What concerns do you have? All reliable antiviruses mark StopAd as a safe software. StopAd performs filtering on the user’s machine without sending any data outside the environment, so you can be sure that your personal data is safe.
Davyy Brown
I use it on my Android. Cool app
Steven Tonson
- Looks good. I'll try.
Kristina Zakharchenko
@steventonson Thank you! Come back and share your thoughts then)
Max Kulinich

I've used Stopad for some time and it feels like THE best ad blocker out there. Nice job!!

Pros:

It does what it claims to do.

Cons:

Didn't notice

Mykola Tymkiv
Loved it from day one, it is a real adblocker !!! Not like other “adblockers” that have “acceptable ” ads policy.
Dinesh P
Would this block ads on YouTube videos casted through Chromecast
Serhiy Lyakhov
@i_dino Hi Dinesh, when you cast videos through Chromecast, it uses its own in-built Youtube app. Unfortunately, we can't block ads there because we're not a part of their platform. If we find the way to be included in Chromecast in-built apps - you'll be among the first to know:)