[late_groomer]

Really glad to see this write-up. I love my current PiHole setup, but replicating it for family/friends (especially with my blocking so many sites they might want) hasn't seemed doable. I would be having to help them constantly with blocked sites, etc.,.

My setup could be even better if either Fios or Orbi provided a half-decent router, but just using PiHole as my DNS server has been awesome. When my Pi (SD card) crashed and I had to revert to my old router setup, it was shocking how slow everything was. I'd become so used to pages loading in a blink, waiting a second or two while ads loaded seemed to take forever.

If you have any unused SFF computer gathering dust, give PiHole a try (runs on any of the major linux distros). Initial setup takes under an hour. You can customize the backend out of it with blocksite lists; I'm blocking so much my wife and kids can't even install new iPhone apps. Amazon Devices, Rokus, Google, nothing gets to call home unless I allow it. I have it forcing all Google/Bing searches to use their clean filter; worrying my kids might google "porn" is a thing of the past. There are easy to find tutorials out there, just be sure to filter Google images, as well.

[creeble]

FWIW, a plug here for The FreshTomato router firmware. I just retired my PiHole because FT does the same job seemingly just as well.

Tomato has long been my chosen router firmware - much easier to use than OpenWrt, but not quite as feature-laden and runs on a more select set of hardware (mostly ASUS routers). But it has recently gotten a development boost from a new maintainer, and the ad-blocking seems just as good as PiHole.

I suppose I can unplug my PiHole now that there’s no traffic going to it...

[rsync]

"Really glad to see this write-up. I love my current PiHole setup, but replicating it for family/friends (especially with my blocking so many sites they might want) hasn't seemed doable."

A few things ...

First, you can make pihole-like DNS ad-filtering available to everyone you know by using nextdns.io as your DNS and (basically) moving your pihole into the cloud. It's a tremendous product and I wish I had thought of it.

Second, aren't all of these things (pihole / nextdns) already obsolete ? Browsers (like firefox) are enabling DoH by default and devices in your home as well as apps on your devices are going to migrate to DoH as well.

Unless there is a solution I am missing I fear that we had a brief golden age where properly configured ad-blocking, via DNS, was a simple and useful solution but now that's falling apart ...

[zinekeller]

> Browsers (like firefox) are enabling DoH by default

If you are using a filtered DNS, there is a domain (use-application-dns.net) that you add to tell Firefox to not activate it (unless if the user explicitly activated it). It's already included in Pi-Hole, and some hosts list includes it (despite Firefox prioritising hosts list before DoH).

Plain-text DNS are redirectible (technically a hijack, but whatever).

Ironically, I think that most IoT devices will be the one with hard-to-shut-off DoH/DoT: even worse, they have the incentive to develop a proprietary protocol for ads, so the next step-up would be IP blocklists. Or, I dunno, just hostage your device if you don't allow internet connectivity.

[dreyfan]

That sounds overbearing and your mobile data bills will skyrocket as nobody wants to use your annoying home setup.

[lostlogin]

I’ve had more than one person ask how to replicate mine after the standard internet noise was removed while on my wifi.

It’s also fairly easy to keep a VPN to home running to avoid nosy cooperate wifi and enjoy my own vicious filters.

[dawson]

Did you consider using NextDNS?

[tsjq]

does that block Samsung's ads on their smart TVs ?

[iso1210]

The best way to block samsung is to not spend any money with them. The next best way is to not connect your (non-samsung) smart TV to a network.

[benhurmarcel]

Yes. I use Nextdns (which is a PiHole in the cloud) with a recent Samsung TV, and it can block ads while all smart TV services work just fine.