Getting Started

Welcome to Ad Annihilator!

This page will help you to quickly learn the main features of Ad Annihilator and how to work and benefit from it. The good news are that to start working with Ad Annihilator you need to do nothing! After Ad Annihilator is installed, it is ready to guard you from annoying advertisements, banners and popup windows, protect your privacy and store web documents you visit on your computer for browsing them offline.

Just continue using Internet Explorer as you ever did and Ad Annihilator will do the rest for you!

The best way to get help on Ad Annihilator is its help system. Consult it in case you need more thorough understanding of Ad Annihilator toolbars, dialog boxes and windows, have questions, need background information on concepts underlying Ad Annihilator functionality or to learn how to accomplish typical tasks. To access the help system press F1 key in Ad Annihilator dialog boxes and windows or click Help button that brings you right to the respective help topic on those windows. You may also press Help button on Ad Annihilator toolbar. If the help system provides you with no answer, visit our web site http://adannihilator.com or apply to our support service to support@adannihilator.com. Click here to find out more about Ad Annihilator support.

Ad Annihilator tutorial

Ad Annihilator has an online tutorial that will help you to get acquainted with Ad Annihilator functionality. It takes little time to complete it, and after its completion you should acquire practical skills, understand how you may use Ad Annihilator to your benefit, and conceive the full power of Ad Annihilator.

If you want to start the tutorial, click the following button:

Ad Annihilator modes

There are two modes of Ad Annihilator: simple and advanced.

Use Simple mode if you want to use Ad Annihilator only for banner, popup and cookie blocking and do not need its advanced features. Use Advanced mode if you want to use Ad Annihilator not only for banner, popup and cookie blocking but also for offline browsing, web document management, downloaded documents search and other advanced functions.

Whenever you see this image in Ad Annihilator help, it means that the feature described by the respective help topic is available only in advanced mode of Ad Annihilator.

Whenever you see this image in Ad Annihilator help, it means that the feature described by the respective help topic is available only in simple mode of Ad Annihilator.

To switch between simple and advanced modes do the following:

1. Click Ad Annihilator Options button on Ad Annihilator toolbar. Ad Annihilator Options window will be opened
2. Switch to Program mode tab
3. Click "Switch to Advanced Mode" or "Switch to simple mode" button to switch to another mode

Ad Annihilator user interface

The central part of Ad Annihilator user interface is Ad Annihilator toolbar located at the top of the browser window:

If you do not see it, refer to How to turn on Ad Annihilator toolbar? The rightmost button is Help button that opens Ad Annihilator help system. To learn about other buttons refer to Ad Annihilator toolbar topic.

Another important user interface element of Ad Annihilator is common browser context menu you can access with right mouse button. Ad Annihilator adds its own options there that are distinguished from others by square brackets around them:

Use this menu to block or unblock banners and popups and accomplish other tasks. See Ad Annihilator options in browser context menu for more information on it.

Click here to see a picture of other Ad Annihilator windows. Simply click anywhere within the picture on Ad Annihilator elements to get help about them! That topic is also available in help system under Screenshot title.

The following topics describe typical tasks you may accomplish with Ad Annihilator.

Block banners

Upon installation with default settings Ad Annihilator is already configured to block banners efficiently. To start experiencing banner blocking you need to do nothing! When banners are blocked you will see images similar to the following:

OR

These images are shown instead of banners on the places where you would have seen banners without Ad Annihilator.

What to do if you still see a banner? The answer is very, very simple: right click the banner and select [Block this banner] from the context menu or press Ctrl-Alt-B. That's all! Not only does the banner disappear before your eyes, but this and similar banners will be blocked for future browsing as well! No one offers you such a simple solution to banner problem!

What to do if you blocked a picture instead of banner in error? The answer is simple, too: right click the banner and select [Unblock this banner] from the context menu or press Ctrl-Alt-U.

See How to block banners? and How to unblock banners? for more information on banner blocking.

Block popups

Upon installation with default settings Ad Annihilator is already configured to block ad popups efficiently. To start experiencing popup blocking you need to do nothing! When popups are blocked you will see a small image that appears near Ad Annihilator toolbar temporarily:

and hear a "Popup popped!" sound. Ad Annihilator blocks popups intelligently, i.e. it distinguishes ad popups from useful popups.

What to do if a popup that you need is blocked? The answer is again very, very simple: click "Open blocked popup windows" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and select your popup from there! That's all! If you press Ctrl key when selecting your popup from there, not only this popup opens but it and similar popups will be enabled for future browsing so that you don't need to re-open them any more!

What to do if you enabled or re-opened an ad popup in error? The answer is simple, too: right click the popup or click browser system menu icon in the left top corner of the browser window and select [Block this popup] from there or press Ctrl-Alt-K.

See How to block popups? and How to unblock popups? for more information on popup blocking.

Protect privacy and block cookies

Upon installation with default settings Ad Annihilator is already configured to protect your privacy and block cookies efficiently. To start experiencing cookie blocking you need to do nothing! However, you may want to inspect which cookies are stored by web sites on your computer and block or unblock some of them. This is easy to accomplish: open Cookies tab by pressing  "Progress and Statistics" or "Show Cookie List" ; button  on Ad Annihilator toolbar and select Cookies tab there. In this tab you can see all cookies sent or received by the web site while retrieving the current page, either blocked or unblocked. To block or unblock cookies of specific type simply right-click them and select either "Block cookies of this type" or "Unblock cookies of this type". After that no cookies of that type will be sent by the current web site!

See How to block cookies? and How to unblock cookies? for more information on cookie blocking.

Browse web offline

When you start browsing after Ad Annihilator installation, it automatically stores all the documents you visit on the disk. Later you can easily browse those documents again even without Internet or web sites availability! Just remember two simple rules:

• When you want to browse the web usually, online, switch to "Download from Internet or cache automatically" browsing mode using "Browsing mode" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar;

• When you want to browse the visited documents offline, without Internet availability, switch to "Download from cache if available" browsing mode using Browsing mode button on Ad Annihilator toolbar.

To view, access and manage documents Ad Annihilator stored on disk open Documents, Organizer and Search window by clicking "Documents, Organizer and Search" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and selecting Documents tab there.

See Understanding browsing modes for more information on browsing modes and offline browsing.

Search for stored web documents

Ad Annihilator features an advanced search capability that allows you to search for downloaded web documents by their address, type, size, download date and even text content!

Just open Search tab by clicking "Documents, Organizer and Search" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and selecting Search tab there, enter your search criteria and hit Search button!

See Search tab for more information on Ad Annihilator search capability.

Keep multiple web document versions

Ad Annihilator is capable of storing multiple versions of the same web document. This may be useful  when you want to archive certain dynamic web pages and track how they change in the course of time. For example, by making of multiple versions of a page that displays stock rates, you are able to record how rates were changed from day to day.

To make Ad Annihilator keep multiple versions of the same page open it in the browser, click "Manage versions" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and select "Make new versions automatically". After that each time you visit that page, a new version of the page will be stored on disk. To access those versions later click "Manage versions" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and select "Show all versions".

See How to manage document versions? for more information on document versions.

Organize the web documents your way

Ad Annihilator features a web document organizer similar to Internet Explorer Favorites but with advanced features. To open document organizer click "Documents, Organizer and Search" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and select "Organizer". There are numerous ways to add links to the organizer: you may drag-and-drop links from the browser or Address bar, right-click a link in the browser and select [Add To Organizer], click "Add current document to organizer " button on Ad Annihilator toolbar  or add them manually. You may create an unlimited number of link categories in the organizer to further categorize your view of the web.

See How to organize documents? for more information on document organizer.

Share documents between people and computers

Using Ad Annihilator you may easily transfer web documents from one computer to another, send them to your friends, archive documents, and all this without losing document content and structure.

There are two methods for document sharing:

• Using Ad Annihilator package files with .aak extension. To create a package open Documents, Organizer and Search window by clicking "Documents, Organizer and Search" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and selecting Documents tab there, select documents you want to place in the package, right-click your selection to open the context menu and choose "Export to disk". Then you may hand the package over to other people or transfer it to other computers where they can be easily imported using "Import from disk" option in the same context menu;

• Duplication of web documents on the disk similar to Internet Explorer "Save As..." command. Unlike Internet Explorer, Ad Annihilator duplicates documents with much more fidelity and less errors. To duplicate the current web document on disk select "Duplicate on disk" option in the File browser menu. To duplicate multiple documents open Documents, Organizer and Search window by clicking "Documents, Organizer and Search" button on Ad Annihilator toolbar and selecting Documents tab there, select documents you want to duplicate, right-click your selection and choose "Duplicate document on the disk".