AdFree

AdFree

Privacy Policy

AdFree collects no personal data. This page explains exactly what that means, what the one outbound request does, and what your rights are.

Updated: 17 October 2026

The short version

AdFree does not collect, store, transmit or sell personal data. It has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising identifiers and no third-party scripts. Everything the extension needs to work is stored in your own browser. AdFree contacts this site only on occasions you start yourself: when you press the Report Ad button; once after you install it, in the Edge and Firefox versions, when the browser opens this site's homepage with a short welcome note; and when you uninstall it and the browser opens a page that asks why. What each one sends is described below.

What the extension stores on your device

AdFree uses your browser's local extension storage for:

  • whether blocking is switched on, globally and for individual sites you have paused;
  • which of the six optional filter lists you have enabled;
  • the running count of blocked items shown in the toolbar popup;
  • the addresses of the last pages you reported (at most 200), so the same page cannot be reported twice;
  • a technical record of its own health: how many blocking rules are in place, whether loading them failed, and, for the last seven days, how many pages asked for a known ad library (Google's or Yandex's) and whether that library got through, and how many YouTube ad breaks started playing. Only these counts are kept — not which pages they were.

This data stays in your browser's local extension storage, which is kept on that device only: it is not synced between your devices, not sent to us and not backed up to any server we run, and it is deleted when you uninstall the extension. The one exception is the short count summary described under "If you uninstall AdFree" below.

What the extension does not do

  • It does not record the pages you visit, your browsing history, your searches or your downloads.
  • It does not read, store or transmit the contents of web pages, form fields, passwords or cookies.
  • It contains no analytics library, no crash reporting and no advertising or fingerprinting code, and it sends nothing in the background while you browse.
  • It does not sell, rent or share data with anyone, because it holds nothing to share.

Why the extension asks for access to every site

An ad blocker can only block requests on the pages where those requests are made, so Chrome requires broad host access before it will apply blocking rules. In AdFree that access is used for exactly three things: applying the blocking rules that ship inside the extension, hiding leftover ad containers so pages do not end up full of empty boxes, and refusing pop-up and pop-under windows. The blocking itself is performed by Chrome's own declarativeNetRequest engine, which means the rules are handed to the browser once and the browser matches them internally — the addresses you visit are never passed to the extension's code for inspection, let alone to a server.

The Report Ad button

The toolbar popup has a Report Ad button. It does nothing unless you press it. When you do, AdFree sends the address of the page you are currently on so that a blocking rule can be written for it. Only the site and the path are sent — the query string and the fragment are stripped first, because those can carry search terms and session tokens and are not needed to write a rule. The report is sent only if AdFree is actually running on that page; on pages where the browser does not let extensions run, nothing is sent. Two technical details are kept with each report so we can tell an ad that got past an old version from one the current rules still miss: the browser type (Chrome, Edge, Firefox…), read from the request your browser sends anyway, and — from version 1.1.11 in Chrome and Edge — the extension's version number. No identifier of you or your installation is attached, and the reports are used only to maintain the filter lists that ship with later versions of the extension. So that one person pressing the button repeatedly counts once, the server keeps a keyed one-way hash of the connecting address and the page for 24 hours, after which it expires; the address itself is not stored.

When you install AdFree

The Edge and Firefox versions (1.1.6 and later) open this site's homepage right after installation, with a short welcome note and a few tips on pinning and using the extension. It happens once - not on updates - and the Chrome version does not do it. The address carries the extension version and the browser type (Edge or Firefox), nothing else. The page stores nothing; like any request, the visit may appear in the host's server logs (see below).

If you uninstall AdFree

When the extension is removed, your browser opens one page on this site asking why. It is optional — you can simply close it. The address of that page carries the extension version you had and which browser it was (Chrome, Edge or Firefox), so that the answers can be told apart. In the Chrome and Edge versions (1.1.2 and later) it also carries the counts from the technical record described above: how many blocking rules were in place, a short error code if loading them failed (from 1.1.17 also the number of the AdFree rule the browser refused, if it refused one, and how many it refused), whether blocking was switched on, how many of the six lists were enabled, how many sites you had paused, today's blocked-item count, and last week's ad-library and YouTube counts. These are numbers and codes only — never a page address, a site name or anything that identifies you or your installation. They tell us whether "ads still showed up" means one stubborn site or a copy of AdFree that was not blocking at all.

In the Chrome and Edge versions, when the page opens it counts the visit, whether you answer or not: the version, browser type and technical summary from its address are added to a running total for that day and that version — for example, "1.1.10, Chrome: 12 uninstalls today, 7 of them on the day of installation". Only these totals are kept, not a record of each visit, its time or its address, and they are deleted after 120 days. They show whether a new version is removed less often than the one before, which the few people who answer cannot tell us.

If you choose to answer, we store the reason you picked, a site and a comment if you typed them, together with that version, browser, technical summary and the page language. A site you type is stored without its query string, as with Report Ad. If you close the page without answering, nothing is stored beyond the count above (none at all in Firefox), although the page address may appear in the host's server logs like any other request (see below). Your IP address is not stored with the answer or the count, and nothing ties either to you or to your installation. To stop automated abuse of the form and the count, a keyed one-way hash of the connecting address is kept for one hour and then expires.

This website

adfree.pro is a WordPress site hosted by Hostinger. It embeds no third-party analytics, no advertising, no social widgets and no externally hosted fonts or scripts, so no third party learns that you visited it.

  • Server logs. Like any web server, the host records requests — IP address, time, page, referrer and user agent — for security and troubleshooting. These logs are kept by the hosting provider under its own retention policy and are not used to profile visitors.
  • Visit statistics. The site counts its page views with its own statistics plugin, which runs on this server and uses no cookies. For each view it records the page (without its query string), the referring site, the country your browser's connection comes from, and the device and browser type; it also counts form submissions and clicks on links that lead to other sites (that site and path). Views on the same day are told apart by a one-way hash whose key is replaced every day, so a visitor cannot be followed from one day to the next; the IP address itself is not stored. These records are deleted after 60 days.
  • Cookies. The site sets one cookie, adf_lang, and only after you pick a language. It stores that language code so the site opens in it next time. It is not an identifier and is not used for tracking. Comments on blog posts, if you leave one, use WordPress's standard comment cookies.
  • Email. If you write to us, we keep your message and address for as long as it takes to answer you and to keep a record of the issue.

Children

AdFree is not directed at children and collects no data from anyone, including children.

Your rights

Data protection law (including the GDPR and the UK GDPR) gives you rights to access, correct, export and erase personal data held about you. AdFree holds none, so in practice there is nothing to request — but if you have written to us and want that correspondence deleted, ask and it will be.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it. Material changes — anything that would alter what data leaves your device — will also be described in the extension's release notes.

Contact

Questions about this policy: [email protected].