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Pi-Hole or something else for network ad blocking?

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?

Dhrystone ,
@Dhrystone@infosec.pub avatar

I actually had a lot of fun a couple years ago deploying PiHole on one of my RaspberryPi’s and routing all my household machines through it. It worked great UNTIL.. my kid was turning in empty homework on Google Classroom and his teachers were getting up him about it. We chastised him thinking it was his fault until I finally discovered that Pihole was messing up his uploads to GC and literally causing this problem. I got super angry with it and walked away without even trying to troubleshoot. Had to profusely apologise not only to his teachers but to him.

uranibaba ,

If someone really wants this service but do not want to (or cannot) host it themself, https://ovpn.com offer this in their client. I used to have a pi-hole selfhosted but not anymore. Using their client on my phone as well solved the problem with blocking ads while not at home.

Father_Redbeard ,
@Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml avatar

I ran Pi-hole for years. Switched to adguardhome running on 2 servers (primary and secondary) with AGH sync keeping the two instances identical. I like the UI better, dns rewrites, and the ability to simply block services entirely with a single click.

Flying_Hellfish ,

I did this as well, I still have 2 pihole instances running with gravitysync for now, but AGH sync is much easier to setup and maintain. My 2 pihole instances are running for my guest network only and AGH is running everything else.

Fedegenerate ,

I went with a pi running pi-hole. I got it as a project where the tool is the project. But, it's essential infrastructure now and I don't want to mess with it incase I break it. I'm an idiot with a poor history with pi guides so far, so I will break it. It's running the adblock fine, I assume it's doing the tracking and malware blocking fine too.

Sadly, that's where I leave the project for now, I had intended to give it a HDD and some... other... software but I really don't want to break it. I tried convincing the better half that I obviously need to N+1 but she wisely did not see reason.

khorak ,

If you want to try setting it up in high availability with failover, give me a poke. And until then - go to Teleporter in the settings, and download the backup. You can restore from there.

One thing worth saying is this - you can grab a cheap refurbished ssd (the smaller - the better), check it's SMART data for any red flags, and attach it to the pi as OS disk. It will be much more reliable than SD, but overkill if you only run pi on the box.
Alternatively look into log2ram, it keeps your SD card alive for longer :D but backup first!

Fedegenerate , (edited )

Thanks. I already have Log2Ram running to prolong the life of the SD. My planned disaster relief is a spare SD, already set up and taped to the box ready to swap and reboot in case of emergency. SD cards are cheap so chucking <£10 at the setup once in a while is no big thing. A fresh install on the new SD allows me to improve on what I've already done, for example the new SD I'll run DietOS instead of Raspbian, and reinforce skills. Less time efficient but that's no matter when the box is working and it's a hobby. I can then keep the old SD card taped inside the case as a physical back up. Perhaps more expensive in the long run, but an SD card taped to the inside of the case with simple instructions is an easy sell to the fiancée.

My experience with guides has shaken my confidence quite a bit. Which is fine, I'll get over myself and the point is to learn, so me hitting snags is a good thing. But, until I have a functioning back up I'm not going to be fucking with it. Facebook cannot go down on account of my education.

But if I may, I have one question, a bunch of recommendations have the setup "segregated" (I dunno the word) in Docker and Portainers but I don't understand the rationale. I wasn't intending on doing this, instead opting to install Pi-hole, Log2Ram, UFW, and the... other... softwares directly to the OS for simplicity. Why would one set up a Pi-hole et al in a containers instead of directly?

My current set up is Raspbian OS running Pi-hole as ad, tracker, malware block and DHCP (the ISP router is a Sky2 box so no IP or DNS customisation), Log2Ram and UncomplicatedFireWall.

khorak ,

I wasn’t intending on doing this, instead opting to install Pi-hole, Log2Ram, UFW, and the… other… softwares directly to the OS for simplicity. Why would one set up a Pi-hole et al in a containers instead of directly?

So there are many reasons, and this is something I nowadays almost always do. But keep in mind that some of us have used Docker for our applications at work for over half a decade now. Some of these points might be relevant to you, others might seem or be unimportant.

  • The first and most important thing you gain is a declarative way to describe the environment (OS, dependencies, environment variables, configuration).
  • Then there is the packaging format. Containers are a way to package an application with its dependencies, and distribute it easily through the docker hub (or other registries). Redeploying is a matter of running a script and specifying the image and the tag (never use latest) of the image. You will never ask yourself again "What did I need to do to install this again? Run some random install.sh script off a github URL?".
  • Networking with docker is a bit hit and miss, but the big thing about it is that you can have whatever software running on any port inside the container, and expose it on another port on the host. Eg two apps run on port :8080 natively, and one of them will fail to start due to the port being taken. You can keep them running on their preferred ports, but expose one on 18080 and another on 19080 instead.
  • You keep your host simple and empty of installed software and packages. Less of a problem with apps that come packaged as native executables, but there are languages out there which will require you to install a runtime to be able to start the app. Think .NET, Java but there is also Python out there which requires you to install it on the host and have the versions be compatible (there are virtual environments for that but im going into too much detail already).

Basically I have a very simple host setup with only a few packages installed. Then I would remotely configure and start up my containers, expose ports etc. And I can cleanly define where my configuration is, back up only that particular folder for example and keep the rest of the setup easy to redeploy.

Fedegenerate ,

I have nothing to add, and an upvote isn't enough. Truly, thank you for your time, there's a lot to think about.

I think for this initial iteration I'm going to direct install in the name of keeping it simple. Next go around I'll try containerising, just to learn if nothing else. If I out-grow the Pi4 they'll be good skills to have.

LunchEnjoyer ,

NextDNS is awesome if you want the simple solution, and don't have any hardware to install services on. Thee free version is somehwta limited to queries(300k per month), but personally didn't hit those when I was using the free tier.

NextDNS has a lot of nice customization and can easily had custom block lists. The pro version is 2euros a month I believe. I personally stick with NextDNS due to never having to worry about updating the service and it always just works. I also have it hooked to my Tailnet, that way all my devices use it by default.

But ofc, Pihole, Adguard and the rest are also awesome. Best to just pick one that looks good for you. The end goal here is to just have something running in the background rather than nothing.

Rookeh ,

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.

bdonvr ,

Pi-hole is great, but unfortunately ads in YouTube or other streaming services is not one of the things it blocks.

HexagonSun ,

Glad I read this - all my other devices block ads perfectly well already, but was wondering if I could block YouTube ads on my Apple TV... I guess not!

PainInTheAES ,

Your best bet is getting a platform your can sideload apps onto and running SmartTube

mgrimace ,

If you’re comfortable self hosting you can use isponsorblocktv to block ads/sponsorship on YouTube on AppleTv and various smart TVs. I use this + Pi-Hole https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV

greyskies ,

Not sure of any downside yet but setting your country to Albania via vpn removes all YouTube ads on Apple TV. Was just informed of this yesterday and as mentioned there may be reasons to not do this.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

PiHole and similar services just use DNS blocking, which only works if the ads are served via a third-party ad server. Sites with their own ad inventory (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc) can't be blocked this way since they can just serve the ads from the same domain as their regular content.

dontblink ,
@dontblink@feddit.it avatar

I wonder why we don't have AI browser extensions that can recognise and obscure possible ads / unwanted content yet

HerzogVonWiesel ,

Simple: That would be the opposite of making money for companies

WaxedWookie ,

Because the AI isn't needed, and would be computationally expensive.

Extensions like ublock origin and sponsorblock work just fine.

Evotech ,

I've used https://controld.com/

philpo ,

If you are more into a full DNS solution that can also block Technitium DNS is a reasonable choice.
It is fairly userfriendly, can be run in an LXC easily (I am doing exactly that), able to use multiple block lists in any combination you want, can be controlled by an API, is regularly updated,etc.

I couldn't be happier with it, even though the learning curve is somewhat steep, when you are new to DNS. It is a fully fledged DNS server after all.

eskuero ,
@eskuero@lemmy.fromshado.ws avatar

I have no experience outside of blocky, but the configuration file is so damm simple and clean I have troubles even considering anything else.

Gooey0210 ,

Adguard-home is way better than pi-hole imo

Guajojo ,

Pihole user for more than 5 years,.can confirm that it is indeed better, made the switch few months ago

DreadPotato ,

What makes adguard home better than pihole? Genuinely curious, I'm running pihole now and have been for a couple of years without issues.

Gooey0210 ,

Replied here
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/7637726

Maximilious ,

What makes it better other than the UI? I'm weary of using it because it is developed by Russian developers.

Gooey0210 ,

Encryption, UI, probably a little bit more serious development

But encryption is a big thing, DoT, DoH, Quic. And soon they will have ECH

bdonvr ,

That's cool for certain applications but on my home network should I really be super concerned about DNS encryption?

Gooey0210 ,

Probably not, but anyway it's pretty cool to have an option to do this kind of stuff

You can set up this dns on your phone, laptop, without a need of vpn (although vpns are cool, especially tailscale)

But, are you always connected to the vpn? Or even to connect to the vpn itself you probably need dns, why would not use your own

Darkassassin07 ,
@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

Not within the network, but translating regular dns to DoH before heading out to WAN keeps your browsing a little bit more private from your isp. Marginal, but it is a difference.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

It's not just a little bit more private... It's a lot more private. Some ISPs have been known to build advertising profiles using DNS data. It's trivial for them to see all DNS lookups and even modify the responses, since it's both unencrypted and unauthenticated by default.

SpaceCadet ,
@SpaceCadet@feddit.nl avatar

Just wanted to chime in and say that with a pihole you can also have encryption if you point to a local resolver like cloudflared or unbound.

My pihole forwards everything to a cloudflared service running on 127.0.0.1:5353 to encrypt all my outgoing DNS queries, it was really easy to setup: https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/cloudflared/

Gooey0210 ,

Hold on, this is not the same encryption

The encryption i was talking about is the encryption of your dns server

The article you sent is talking about upstream dns server encryption

SpaceCadet ,
@SpaceCadet@feddit.nl avatar

The encryption i was talking about is the encryption of your dns server

You mean encryption between the client and your DNS server, on your local network?

Gooey0210 ,

You can do it on your local network, but this won't make much sense

I mean encryption between your phone or laptop outside of your house, and your dns server at your house

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

That's a bunch of extra manual work though - both the initial setup, plus keeping the extra software packages up-to-date. With AdGuard Home, it's already configured to use DoH by default.

EncryptKeeper ,

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.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Plus it's easy to run multiple AdGuard Home servers and keep them in sync using https://github.com/bakito/adguardhome-sync

Gooey0210 ,

Oh, oh, oh, gimme that!!

First time i hear about something like that, i'm going to install it asap

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

It works well! I have one AdGuardHome instance running on my home server and one running on a Raspberry Pi, both using Docker. Having two prevents the internet from breaking in case I have to shut down one of them for some reason.

Codilingus ,

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.

KyuubiNoKitsune ,

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.

akilou ,

You should definitely set up pihole but I don't think it'll block ads on streaming apps unless I'm wrong and someone can point me to something that explains how I can set that up.

Maximilious ,

Yeah it's near impossible to block on streaming services because most of the ads are served up from the same DNS locations that the watchable media is hosted on.

akilou ,

Right. I mean, I looked into this a few years ago when I set it up and just accepted my fate

ajmxco ,
@ajmxco@lemmy.world avatar

I use knot-resolver with the big block list from https://oisd.nl/ and it works great.

unwillingsomnambulist ,

Pi-Hole’s great. Got my primary instance on a Pi 4 and three secondaries (one per vlan) on LXCs. Works so well it feels weird seeing ads when I’m not at home, I’m actually considering using Tailscale to route all my queries through my home connection.

Arkhive ,

I do this and it works great. Ad block on all my devices regardless of proprietary sandboxes. I also use Syncthing over my tailnet IP addresses so that traffic never leaves my “grounds”. I’m slowly building out a whole suite of services I host only within my tailnet, jellyfin, calibre, invidious, it been a great learning experience. I’m about to set up a proper home lab, finally moving everything off an old laptop.

zylinderhut ,

I second that, turns out 90% of the queries on my network come from my Libratone speakers and they seem to desperately try and reach China (.com.cn)

rentar42 , (edited )

Hint: you don't need to route all your traffic through your VPN to make use of the pihole adblocking: Just DNS. If your at home internet is even moderately stable/good then this should barely affect your roaming internet experience, since DNS traffic is such a small part of all traffic.

Also, since I'm already mirroring the configuration of my PiHole instance to a secondary one, I'm considering putting a tertiary one on some forever-free cloud server instance and just using that when not at home (put it into the same wireguard vpn to prevent security nightmares). That way my roaming private DNS wouldn't even depend on my home internet.

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