[Jaruzel]

I ran Pi-Hole for a few weeks, and found it was more trouble than it it was worth. Because it blocks at the DNS level using (very large) DNS blacklists. It was cumbersome to temporarily whitelist domains when you hit a site that just wouldn't load properly as you had no idea which of the many domains that site was requesting were being blocked. By comparison, using an in-browser adblocker you can just disable the the adblocker and reload the page, and once done, a single click re-enables the adblocker again. Also, Pi-Hole used to be undetectable by anti-adblocker scripts, but now it isn't.

Although very good at what it does (almost too good in fact) it is a blunt instrument that may or may not suit your needs.

[ophelia]

I've been running it at home for about a month and I find it no less cumbersome to a browser plugin. The whitelists are permanent, and if you think it's blocking something, you can look at the block list log & whitelist. As a last resort you can also disable it temporarily.

[Griffinsauce]

You meant to write "no more cumbersome" right?

[PuffinBlue]

Unlikely, there's a subtle difference in the connotations of 'no more' and 'no less' in this context.

'No less' is implying they're both bad. It is a subtly ambivalent statement.

[djrogers]

Using the phrase 'no less' implies that the former could be more cumbersome than the latter though, which I think was the opposite of his point.

[jasonkostempski]

Every site I've come across that doesn't work under these conditions wasn't worth whitelisting, I usually add them to my link blacklist so I don't accidentally clicked them any more. I'm curious if you have to whitelist sites you actually need or if it's just news-like sites.

[igitur]

Same here. I switched from Pi-Hole to Privoxy and haven't looked back.

[joosters]

I can strongly recommend privoxy too. It can block everything that Pi-Hole can, and more too, but in a easier to use way. For instance, privoxy has a simple online tool to show whether or not a URL is blocked, and you can temporarily enable/disable blocks if you need to. As it doesn't use DNS to block traffic, there's also no problems with out-of-date blocks cached in the DNS.

It also offers finer grained blocking since it works on the hostname of a site (and also the URL path for unencrypted traffic) Privoxy is also lightweight enough to run well on a RPi.

[argorain]

My experience is exactly same. I actually ended with whitelist so huge it wasn't making sense anymore...

[hiram112]

You can easily login to Pi-Hole admin and turn off the blocking for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, ..., indefinitely.

Though, TBH, this still does not work due to either aggressive DNS caching by the OS or the browser. Even flushing it or switching browsers does not always fix it. Not sure why.

[rubatuga]

Pi-hole wasn’t worth it for me either, also the suite seemed overly restrictive to me, in a way that simplifies it to end users.

[maweki]

You can run both. I do.

Most benefit I get for my phones, tablets, and Smart TV with the DNS-block.