The popular advertisement blocker Adblock Plus has been released as a preview version for Microsoft's Internet Explorer by the developers of the application. The release brings the popular browser extension to all major browsers on the Windows operating system. [Update: the final version is now available]

The preview version is somewhat limited in comparison but that is understandable. It is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit version that you can download and install just like any other program on your system.

Internet Explorer will display a notification about the installation on next start. The browser does not enable third party extensions by default unless you explicitly do so.

If you missed that option, click on the settings icon and select manage add-ons from the menu to do so at a later point in time. The program is listed under Toolbars and Extensions as Adblock Plus for IE Browser Helper Object by Eyeo GMBH.

Note that you need to restart Internet Explorer once before the ad blocking functionality and the status bar icon become available in the web browser.

The extension adds an icon to the status bar that is not visible by default. You do receive a notification about that on the next browser start after you have enabled the extension. To enable it right away, right-click on the title bar of the browser and select the status bar option from here.

A left-click on the icon opens a menu with several options. You can use it to check for updates, disable ad blocking on the current website, or open the the configuration menu in a new tab. Here it is possible to subscribe to one of the adblocking lists and to disable ad blocking on select websites.

What Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer offers at this point in time is actually pretty similar to the browser's own Tracking Protection feature. Here you can also subscribe to lists that block advertisement on the Internet.

One needs to keep in mind though that the tracking protection list may also include servers and services that are whitelisted, so that advertisement served are always displayed in the browser.

The developers of Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer have not posted compatibility information. The version worked fine on a 64-bit Internet Explorer 10 version.

A source code of the program will be released before the release of the final version for Internet Explorer.

Update: Adblock Plus is compatible with all Internet Explorer versions from 8 onwards.

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