I’ve been aware of pi-hole for a while now, but never bothered with it because I do most web browsing on a laptop where browser extensions like uBlock origin are good enough. However, with multiple streaming services starting to insert adds into my paid subscriptions, I’m looking to upgrade to a network blocker that will also cover the apps on my smart TV.
I run most of my self hosted services on a proxmox server, so I’d like something that’ll run as an LXC container or a VM. I’m also vaguely aware that various competing applications have come out since pi-hole first gained popularity. Is pi-hole still the best thing going, or are there better options?
AdGuard Home and blocky are other popular options. I switched over to AdGuard Home a while back because it supported DNS over HTTPS although I’m not sure if that’s still a relevant reason. I run AGH as a docker container but it is easy to run in a LXC or VM. There’s also a tool to sync configs if you need multiple instances. Notice: AGH block lists are formatted like uBlock Origin lists so you will not be able to use PiHole style lists.
DNS based ad blockers won’t work when ads are served from the same place as the content. Which is why DNS based ad blockers don’t work against Twitch or YouTube. So YMMV.
If you’re looking to block interface ads and select streaming service ads there are block lists available like this one. The game with smart TVs is blocking the ads breaks the TV a little because sometimes it calls back to the same servers for updates and misc info like weather.
I use both. Pi-hole running in a docker container on one of my home servers which my gateway is configured to assign as the default DNS for all clients, and uBlock Origin on all my browsers to catch everything else.
Pihole is pretty good at catching ads on platforms that are not suited to browser based blockers (IoT devices, streaming boxes etc) but it isn’t perfect and is best used in conjunction with another solution.
Adguard-home is way better than pi-hole imo
Pihole user for more than 5 years,.can confirm that it is indeed better, made the switch few months ago
As an AdGuard home user for more than a few years, I switched back to Pihole because it wasn’t really any better. It was also easier to pair pihole with Unbound.
removed by mod
NextDNS.
Also, be wary of relying on anything blocking ads on streaming services this way. They will likely serve them within the video stream, so not network-blockable.
Yes, been running one for many years and it’s great.
Shoutout to the PiHole team!
Adguard home is like pihole, but has built in encrypted DNS options. For easy mode NextDNS.
They pretty much all have the same block lists to choose from.
I use 2 cloudflare containers that the pihole points to. That gives me DNS over https but it’s more of a mission to set up.
I love pihole, for my family it is better as it helps on all the devices. Being able to block malware and tracking is nice too
I run pihole on proxomox, and also opnsense in the same box. Then you can forward all port 53 traffic to your pihole. Some devices have hard-coded DNS that will bypass the DHCP DNS.
Some chromecasts stop working when you do that.
Chuck 'em in the garbage and get something that doesn’t break when you insist on privacy.
Ha! This is my new way of looking at my smart devices. I’ll sell you off if you don’t do what I want, and buy something that does. Very much a threat.
I recently factory reset all my Roku TVs, and didn’t connect them to the internet… and they work much better now.
Roku broke big time when I insisted on privacy. blocked the entire Roku domain, it broke the apps on a 1-month schedule like clockwork to get the network release for reinstall which allowed for phone home. lol no. I trashed it. They are dumb TVs now.
I’ve done the same! It’s impossible to buy dumb TVs nowadays, but you can always prevent them from connecting to the network.
Yeah do it there is basically no downside. I agree with others that you may have trouble with the ads in streaming services. On my android TV, YouTube ads, for instance, aren’t blocked by pihole.
When the ads come from the same domain as the content, which is the case with youtube, you can’t block them with any DNS based ad blocker.
I felt the same way about youtube, streaming, shopping and general browsing: too many ads. Ruins the content. I set up a pi-hole as an experiment to see if it would do what it said and what others said about it. Manage your expectations here. Pi-hole works well for blocking a lot of static information and ads in your browser and a lot of apps on iOS and Android. It does not block video ads on Youtube or Hulu, it does not block ads for Roku or Firestick or Smart TV apps for example, it just does not work because of the technical limitations of how the PiHole software is designed. Using a regular PC with adblock browser extension installed as well gets rid of 99% of ads including video ads from adcdns. PiHole is incredibly easy to setup and install, the pay off in quality of life is enormous. I cannot recommend it more to someone that has a little networking knowledge base. If you can figure out how to port forward and run a handful of command lines you can complete a pihole setup in an hour.
Why would you want to port forward your dns?
Sorry, you wouldnt and didnt mean to imply that. I was suggesting that port forwarding is a fairly easy task and if one is confident in their ability to do that, than they should be able to complete a PiHole install.
Pinhole is still a thing. If you want other options there is also adguard.
I use Blocky. I switched from PiHole because I didn’t have need for all the features (DHCP, Dashboard) and honestly it was a slow day and I had nothing better to do.
There’s nothing really bad with PiHole but I moved from it to AdGuard, both on proxmox. The UI brought me in, makes management a bit easier. It also supports DoH right out of the box.
Try em both. See what you think.
https://lemmy.world/post/10327372
This dude uses mini PCs for pi type tasks.
Might be easier to get a hold of.
Good luck OP
PiHole runs great on older Raspberry Pi’s(I am still using a pi3). Older models are still very easy to get and a readily available from the approved resellers list.
Was running on my original pi b up till I replaced it recently with a pi 4. Was a little slow but worked fine.
Agreed that’s what I’m doing as well.
