DoGood IE and Safari Add-ons

Name: DoGood Internet Explorer and Safari Add-Ons

Type: Browser Helper Object (BHO) for Internet Explorer and Webkit Plug-in for Safari

Platform: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS

Technologies: С++, COM, DOM, WinAPI, HTTP, XML, Objective C, Cocoa

Goal: Сreation of Add-ons for Internet Explorer and Safari, which are responsible for replacing all advertising banners on a web page by the specified banners from the DoGood server.

Description: DoGood add-ons hide generic advertising banners on the Internet and display DoGood banners instead. DoGood banners' subject matter is related with green initiatives, charitable calls for action and health and wellness ideas. The customer’s key requirement to the application was the speed and accuracy of ads' identification by the given add-ons.

How it works: the add-ons 'analyze' the structure of a given page, 'figure out', which elements belong to advertising banners (using its own logic and asking the server for 'black' and 'white' URL lists), and once traced – replace a banner element by a banner from the DoGood server. Internet Explorer add-on finds and replaces both image ads and flash ads, whereas Safari add-on replaces only flash ads.

Add-ons' context menus also offer some additional functionality. They allow sending reports saying that the current element is an advertising banner (only for Internet Explorer), adding a web site to the white list (i.e. allowing to show original advertising from a given web site), sending an e-mail to the DoGood support center, instantly showing original advertising. IE Add-on places an additional icon with a green leaf and the number of replaced ads on a web page. Safari add-on doesn't place an icon, it only adds a stats counter of the replaced banners to the web pages containing flash ads.

DoGood Internet Explorer Add-on is created as a Browser Helper Object (BHO). A BHO is based on COM (Component Object Model) component that implements IObjectWithSite interface. Internet Explorer Add-on gets access to DOM (Document Object Model) of the current page and control navigation.

DoGood Safari Add-on is created as a standard WebKit Plug-in. Its instance is created every time an object of 'Macromedia Flash' MIME-type is found on the page. The plug-in then substitutes the original ad-flash content on the page for flash content from DoGood server.