GlimmerBlocker
HTTP based ad blocker for Mac OS X
No hacks, no instability
Upgrade Safari whenever you like, no need to wait for an upgraded hack
GlimmerBlocker is no longer maintained and should no longer be used as web sites have migrated from using plain http to using https (i.e. encrypted) which prohibits modification by a proxy unless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.
GlimmerBlocker now survives when a system is restored from a Time Machine backup or when upgrading OSX using the "archive and install" option.
Time Machine doesn't restore the directory /Library/Logs/GlimmerBlocker?, and this made the GlimmerBlocker proxy fail to launch. OSX reinstalls does not keep the _glimmerblocker user, so launchd failed starting the proxy.
The AuthTool --self-repair is run once after each restart so the problems are corrected.
When a webserver doesn't specify a mime type, GlimmerBlocker now doesn't add the default type. This helps compability with some sites that omits mime type from html pages. Previously the html/javascript would be displayed as plain text. Reported by Timothy Bennett and Simon Kuhn.
It now allows the CONNECT method to ports above 1024. To guard against smtp attacks etc, the only allowed ports below 1024 are http, https, snews, ldaps and IPP. Reported by Jonathan Woon.
When "Allow iPhone ... to use GB on this mac" is not checked, GlimmerBlocker now accepts IPv6 localhost (::1) connections in addition to IPv4 (127.0.0.1) connections. Reported by Jan Staunton.
When the developer tools is not installed, it failed dumping stack traces as atos was missing. It now falls back to a simpler stack trace when atos is missing.
The proxy app can now be launched in debug mode from the Terminal using a provided shell script. The debug mode provides diagnostic output when launching. This helps aid debugging when the proxy won't launch.
The internal proxy and upgrade apps are renamed to now have a space in their name as this makes it easier to run them from the Terminal application. Users of Little Snitch must reconfigure it.
Version 1.3.2 was released 2009-02-23. List of release notes.