Building a Future-Proof Ad-Blocking Platform
How We Prevented a Platform Crisis and Opened a New Market in Six Months
Client Background
Our client is a privacy-focused software company behind a popular ad-blocking browser extension trusted by over 900,000 active users across Chrome, Edge, and Opera.
The company partnered with DevPulse for ongoing maintenance and strategic product development to ensure platform reliability and explore new market opportunities.
Business Challenge
The crisis: Google announced it would retire the API powering the extension-giving developers just six months before Chrome enforcement. Without action, the extension would lose Chrome compatibility and face delisting from the Web Store, affecting 900,000 users and eliminating the company's primary revenue stream.
The opportunity: During our maintenance work, we identified a way to expand beyond browser-only protection. A system-level filtering solution with parental controls could open the family-safety market-a natural adjacency the client hadn't yet explored.
What DevPulse Delivered
Zero-disruption migration
Completed Chrome's mandatory API upgrade 2 months ahead of deadline with 100% feature parity and zero downtime for 900,000 users
New revenue stream
Developed a Windows and macOS filtering driver with parental controls, enabling premium tier pricing and entry into the family-safety market
45% faster releases
Automated the entire build-test-deploy pipeline, cutting release time from 3 days to 4 hours
Long-term stability
Established ongoing support ensuring compliance with evolving browser policies and platform requirements
How We Made It Work
Prevented the Chrome Crisis
Business impact: Completed the migration 2 months before Google's enforcement deadline, maintaining full functionality and avoiding Web Store delisting.
We rebuilt the extension around Chrome's new Manifest v3 framework, which required fundamentally changing how ad-blocking works-moving from real-time code execution to rule-based filtering. Despite Chrome's strict 30,000-rule limit, we maintained all blocking capabilities while reducing memory usage by 35% and improving blocking speed to under 5ms per request
The result: 900,000 users experienced no interruption during the transition.
Expanded Into System-Level Protection
Business impact: Created a new premium product tier that protects users beyond the browser, opening the family-safety market and enabling higher-value pricing.
We developed native filtering drivers for Windows and macOS that block ads and trackers at the operating system level-protecting all applications, not just web browsers. The drivers include parental-control features: website category filtering, SafeSearch enforcement, and time-based access scheduling.
Technically, this meant building kernel-level components for two different operating systems while maintaining sub-10ms filtering speed and zero crashes across 18 months of production use.
The result: The client now offers a differentiated premium tier that competitors' browser-only extensions cannot match.
Unified Two Products Into One Experience
Business impact: Users manage both browser and system-level protection from a single interface, reducing support burden and improving conversion rates.
We connected the browser extension and native drivers through a secure local API, letting users control all settings from one place. This architecture supports flexible pricing: free browser-only users can upgrade to premium system-wide protection without changing tools.
Built for Speed and Reliability
Business impact: Release cycles dropped from 3 days to 4 hours, enabling faster response to browser updates and competitive threats.
We automated the entire release process: browser extension packaging, native driver code signing, cross-platform testing across six OS versions, and store submissions. Every release passes 99% test coverage with automated regression checks-we haven't shipped a breaking bug in 18 months.
The result: The client can now deploy security patches within 48 hours and ship new features on a predictable quarterly schedule.
Main Technical Challenges
01
Racing Against Chrome's Deadline
02
Two Operating Systems, One Solution
Building kernel-level drivers for Windows and macOS required deep operating system expertise. We abstracted platform differences into a shared filtering engine while maintaining native performance on each OS.
03
Performance at Scale
The platform handles 3-5 million blocking decisions daily across 900K users. We optimized rule matching to achieve sub-5ms decisions with minimal CPU impact-users never notice the extension is running.
04
Security Without Compromise
Operating at the system level required passing third-party security audits and implementing zero-knowledge architecture-no browsing data ever leaves the user's device. We sandboxed both the extension and native drivers using OS-provided security mechanisms.
05
App Store Approval
Getting a kernel driver approved for macOS meant navigating Apple's strict notarization requirements. We worked directly with Apple's developer relations team to meet all guidelines, achieving approval in three weeks.
Value Delivered
- Business continuity
Avoided platform delisting and maintained 100% user retention through the transition
- Market expansion
New parental-control capabilities opened the family-safety segment with premium pricing
- Operational efficiency
45% faster release cycles and 99% automated testing reduce ongoing costs
- Competitive advantage
System-level filtering creates defensible differentiation vs. browser-only competitors
- Future-proof foundation
Modular architecture adapts quickly to browser policy changes and new platform requirements
Development Timeline
6 months
initial development + ongoing maintenance and support
Team Composition
- 2 Full-Stack Developers
- 1 C++ Engineer
- 1 QA Engineer
- 1 Project Manager
Technology
- Browser Extension:
JavaScript · Chromium Manifest v3 · WebExtensions API
- Native Drivers:
C++ · Windows Filtering Platform · Apple NetworkExtension
- Infrastructure:
Node.js · GitHub Actions · Docker
Ongoing Partnership
DevPulse continues to provide quarterly feature releases, 48-hour security patch response, performance monitoring, and compliance checks to keep the platform aligned with evolving browser and OS requirements.
Architecture
Browser extension with native filtering drivers for Windows and macOS, unified through secure local API
Key Making a Difference:
- 900,000 active users maintained through migration
- 2 months early completion vs. Chrome's deadline
- 0 hours of downtime during the transition
- 45% reduction in release cycle time
- 35% reduction in memory usage
- 99% automated test coverage
- 6 months from project start to production launch
Vlad Tukhtarov
CEO devPulse
Founded DevPulse in 2014, driving product-led growth through innovative, high-performance software architectures and strategic technology adoption.
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