[jammygit]

After a brief skim of that README, I'm not 100% certain how Pi-hole works. Basically, it is a DNS server whose job is to lose requests to trackers, sort of like modifying the hosts file to fail to connect to facebook owned domains? And you use it by telling your router to use it as its DNS server, controlling it via a webpage it hosts on your private network?

[duncan-donuts]

It’s on a raspberry pi that is connected to your LAN. It is dns for the LAN and blocks any requests to hosts that are blacklisted

[bauerd]

What if ads are hosted on the same origin as the content? I'd still need application adblocking then I guess

[nizmow]

True, but in terms of privacy those kinds of ads are mostly a non-issue (and speaking for myself, I'd probably be happy to see them).

[nkrisc]

If a site is serving ads from their own domain, that's OK. As a pi-hole user I'm trying to block automated ad networks as those are the worst culprits when it comes to tracking and serving malware.

I visit some sites that sell their ad spaces directly to advertisers and create and host all creative themselves. I have no issue with those ads.

[close04]

DNS based ad-blocking has limitations. YouTube does exactly this, with ads served from the same URL as the videos. It's a better than nothing solution that will cover 95% of the needs of the whole network. For the rest you can add a browser based adblocker, where possible. Or even firewall rules.

[thaumasiotes]

How does this differ from the traditional hosts file that blocks requests to blacklisted hosts?

[brewdad]

My understanding is that it accomplishes the same thing but for every device on your network rather than having to manage host files on each device. It also works for those where editing the host file isn't possible.

[Juan_Largearm]

It's also good for systems with hard coded domains that ignore hosts files.

Windows will still connect to quite a few even if they are in the hosts file.

[thaumasiotes]

A DNS server can't help with that. You'd need a firewall.

[skrying]

Not much, except it's on another machine and is a central point of config. Can even be used to hand out DHCP

[AdmiralAsshat]

Mobile phones. You can't modify the hosts file on an Android phone without rooting the phone. I'm not even sure how you would do it on an iPhone.

Both of them, however, allow you to manually specify the IP of a DNS server in advanced network settings.

[lavios]

Privacy and ad blocking for whole network instead of just one device and you can also add your own custom dns servers for extra privacy.

For ex: Pihole + Unbound

[WrtCdEvrydy]

Works for devices with hard to access hosts files (IoT garbage, smart TVs)

[jammygit]

It looks like pihole supports wildcards better maybe

[frutiger]

I presume it doesn’t need to be a Raspberry Pi, it could be any host in your LAN?

[thejosh]

Yes, it can run on any host in your lan.

[m463]

I'm guessing a dns lookup of annoying.adserver.com returns the pihole ip address (or a dedicated alternate address)

Then when your browser tries to load content from annoying.adserver.com it connects to the pihole, which returns dummy content (a blank image or html page)

I would imagine hardcoded ip addresses in trackers/ads might bypass pihole.