GlimmerBlocker is no longer maintained and should no longer be used as web sites have migrated from using plain http to using https (i.e. encrypted) which prohibits modification by a proxy unless you resort to install custom SSL certiticates on the client.

You should use a browser extension instead.

It was made as a hobby project during 2007-2008 by Peter Speck. It features both a custom http server and http client and a Mac OS X control panel.

GlimmerBlocker did not only block requests but also allowed for adding custom css and javascript to the pages. It also allowed for modification of the page html before the browser receives the html, which made some modifications much easier than DOM based modifications.

Release notes for version 1.1

Reorganized filters

• The two standard filters have been reorganized to make it easier for users to select what kind of filtering they want. When installing 1.1, your filter list is automatically updated. See the new filter list at the bottom. Thanks to Christian Ohler for suggestions for this reorganization.

Important bug fixes

• QuickTime streaming now works again. Simple download of movies (as Apple use on the trailers site) worked, but RTSP-over-HTTP didn't. GlimmerBlocker responded with HTTP/1.1 when the client made a HTTP/1.0 request and this made the QuickTime player fail to play e.g. NASA live.

• Fix crasher in updating network proxy settings when the interface had no configuration. Bug reported by Tilo Lipowski.

• Fixed bug in host-type = regexp handling: the regexp was never matched, so the iTunes Store rule was executed for all hosts. All regexps must now match the complete host/path/query and not just a sub-part.

• Fixed html5 charset detector when parsing a <meta> element which falls on a 1024 byte boundary (used when a rule has a transformation). Thanks to Nicolas Berloquin for reporting this bug.

• Fixed html5 charset detector for Shift_JIS: it assumed charset names could not contain an underscore. Bug reported by Brandon Williams. Proxy now falls back to sending the html unmodified if it cannot decode the charset instead of responding with an "internal error" page. Filter developers can enable the server debug log to get notified of such problems in the future.

• Transformed html (including adding css/js) now sends the response to Safari using the same charset as the web-server used to send the html instead of always sending modified html as UTF-8. This is needed as many web-servers assume html forms are submitted in the same charset as they used for sending the html. Thanks to Nicolas Berloquin for reporting this bug.

• and many more fixed...

Improvements

• Blocked images are now transparent instead of light gray checkerboard pattern. The latter can be enabled by filter developers for debugging.

• Support for site-wide http proxy. Some companies/ISPs require using an http proxy for external access.

• Log files now roll automatically and purges old archives. This sets an upper bound for disk space used by log files. This was only an issue for filter developers.

• Daily check for updates to filters now only checks enabled filters. (Previously it checked for updates to all filters). When a filter is enabled (by clicking in the filter list) and it hasn't been updated in a while, check for updates immediately.

• The host field now supports simple ip addresses when using type=host-is. Normalizing octal and hexadecimal addresses are not supported and resolving hostnames to ip addresses are not performed at this level, so the rule will only match when Safari uses an URL with exact same sequence of digits and dots.

• Show the rule enabled/disable checkbox for all filter types and not just subscriptions. Suggestion from Nicolas Berloquin.

New filter organization

The two standard filters have been reorganized into the following 4 filters:

Ad-networks

This filter stop ads from e.g. doubleclick and other ad-agencies whose only purpose is to serve ads.

Site specific ads

This blocks ads on specific sites, typically by matching parts of the URL part (e.g. www.example.com/ads/) or a sub-domain (e.g. ads.example.com).

Intrusive/fragile ad filtering

This filter is NOT enabled by default as it contains filtering which may easily break when sites changes design.

Site enhancements

This filter adds functionality to sites, e.g. a download button for movies. NOT enabled by default.

The above filters does not contain the iPhone/iPod optimizations previously found in the "Danish sites". An extra filter is available from glimmerblocker.org with these optimizations.

Version 1.1 was released 2008-12-01. List of release notes.