I want to block ads and trackers on the whole home network. I’ve been using adblockers and trackers for years now; I currently have a Raspberry Pi. I was thinking of setting up Pi-Hole with AdGuard. Any other suggestions are welcome. (I can’t use a custom router, because my ISP doesn’t allow it)
PfSense with PFblockerNG or Pihole
I use PfSense and it’s great
If you want cheap and easy, something like NextDNS. Otherwise, your tentative plan works just as well. My family liked NextDNS because all I had to do was have them install an app, enter my code (for the profile I configure for them), and set it to on. The rest was magic, to them.
That really doesn’t sound that easy…
Pihole has its issues, but at least you dont need to setup each and every device individually.
For balance, the main issue I have with pihole is that family members can’t easily bypass it when they need to, which is inconvenient.
Dont you need to set the dns adress to the pi-hole dns on every device? It was a few years ago but I remember that I had to set my dns to the pi-hole, which acted as a dns server. Or am I mistaken?
You can setup DHCP to give the DNS address to every device automatically. Even heavily locked down routers sometimes have the option, but I guess OP will have to try that out.
Pihole also has a built in DHCP, which you can enable and use as long as you disable the router one.
I set up NextDNS for my family’s devices and it wasn’t that hard. Plus it still works even when they’re not on the home network.
You can set up NextDNS on the router to cover every device on the network. My family is all over the country, so the app was easier for my use case.
either pi-hole or or a filtering dnscrypt server
like blahdns-de, odoh-koki-noads-ams
NextDNS or many other DoH services that are out there (I personally recommend Mullvad).
I second your idea of going with Pi-Hole. It is purpose-made for this and easy to setup.
Plugging my favorite block lists:
- general browsing https://firebog.net/
- For TV’s https://github.com/hkamran80/blocklists
- For Phones https://github.com/craiu/mobiletrackers
Controld.com is what i use and it works great.
They have one server that blocks nothing, one server that blocks known malware, one server that blocks known malware and advertising and tracking, and a server that blocks all of that, including social media. And they are all free.
I use Adguard’s public DNS on my router for convenience, no problems at all. In the past I had pi-hole with some lists that in the end, from time to time, broke things.
yep, 100% set yourself up a pihole. You’ll likely need to set it as your DNS via DHCP in your router, or configure it manually on devices that allow that.
dnsmasq with a blocklist, like /etc/hosts except you can use wildcards on whole domains. Then you just make your router’s default dns to point to the computer running dnsmasq. https://landchad.net/dnsmasq/
Put their router into modem mode and daisy chain your own router. Look up its labels and find the original manufacture for manuals. Watch out for name changes and mergers. ISPs do not manufacture routers. They buy them from companies, change a few logos and lend them to you.
You can also use the DMZ setting for your router depending on the software on the device from your ISP. DMZ means all traffic is forwarded that hits the device.
Make a NextDNS with the settings/features you like and add that as your router’s DNS service. Super simple
This is the lazy option that just works, the free tier is decent but their paid one is so cheap that you can run it for years with the price of a single Rapberry Pi
Pi-hole works great for me, but everyone else on the network that uses Google hates it because the entire first page is ads and they can’t click on them.
I have one SSID with pihole (which I use), and one without. Works pretty well, if you’re ok with a VLAN-aware network.
Yeah, PiHole is great if you live by yourself otherwise the entire household will have it out for you.
Learned that lesson the hard way.
Dunno, I found it pretty easy to set up different rules for different devices.
Yes! PiHole does offer whitelisting profiles for devices however, Apple/IOS devices with their “Private Wi-Fi addresses” make it pain given how the Mac Addresses regularly rotate.
Only Apple the filtering to your MAC addresses.
I install some local adblocker to their devices and they don’t see those ads
For a mobile device / TV, sure.
For a browser on a computer, uBlock or AdNauseum will fix that.
I use Ad-Guard instead of Pihole because the pi-hole software used to be missing some of the DNS features I wanted at the time, and I just stuck with it ever since. I have the main DNS server running on my Unraid Box, and a backup that runs on my HomeAssistant Pi4B.
We have an Odroid with AdGuard that’s worked great for many years. We used to use Pihole but had niggles that Meany AdGuard was easier. For us we wanted a completely free solution that we had complete control over.
Either Pi-Hole or there is also AdGuard Home
From what I’ve heard their as good as each other it just comes down on what UI you prefer^^
