| "I will set up any network I'm in charge of with a DNS that has doubleclick.com as 127.0.0.1, and also many others." You mean doubleclick.net? Alas, that's a typo that would let the ads in. Like you I redirect doubleclick and "many others". But not to localhost. I like to log all the requests either via pflog or a socket logger. Useful for examining what apps are trying to do from my device over the network. Sometimes I redirect certain domains to my own httpd and serve my own "fake" resources (placeholders for in-app ads, etc.). You say "any network I'm in charge of". What if there were a DNS caching server reachable from anywhere that blocked these ad servers for you? That is, what if there was a "public DNS" like 8.8.8.8 or 208.67.222.222 except not run by a company that sells ads or "security services"? What if there was a turnkey ad-blocking DNS caching server solution that one could run on any suitable hosting provider virtual machine instance? Would anyone be interested in such a thing? I have had this personal DNS idea for many years, ad blocking is becoming much more popular only recently. I think users controlling their own DNS is a key step toward taking back the www from the "corporate dreck". Maybe blocking ads is the stimulus for such a change. |
It was quite easy, and I now even use nsupdate to block new ad domains that show up so that I don't have to restart my DNS server to add new names to block.
I pondered making my server publicly available but had concerns about bandwidth, and other potential legal shenanigans. That said I couldn't put my finger on what exactly I'd get in trouble for if I made it public, so perhaps it's just FUD?