zlacker

"After years with Pi-hole, which now blocks over a million domains, I’ve become incredibly accustomed to a mostly ad-free web. Without realizing it, I’d forgotten what the typical internet experience feels like."

It is estimated that between 30% and 50% of Internet users run ad blockers. I haven't see a single ad in years.

Besides, Pi-holes are kind of overrated. First, ad blockers running in the browser are simply more effective. Second, Pi-hole is kind of heavy for what it does; you can accomplish the same by loading a blacklist directly to the config file of Unbound/Bind/Dnsmasq.

>>drnick+(OP)
That seemed to me like a radically high estimate of people who use ad blockers. But I see that the first page of results on MyFavoriteWebSearchEngine support that claim.

>>drnick+(OP)
I don't use "pi-hole", just an in-browser blocker (ublock origin) and am happy. But I would assume a "pi-hole" would be a useful addition to a household using a variety of potentially ad-infested devices e.g. a smart TV, various tablets etc.

>>sherr+cc
The issue is that (some) smart devices are known to bypass local DNS servers entirely. They either use a public DNS server or hardcoded IPs. The best thing would be not to connect any "smart" TV to the Internet. These are closed firmware devices with cameras and microphones and they just can't be trusted.

>>drnick+(OP)
Is that right? Mobile is like 60% of the web traffic and they don't really have popular and effective ad blocking.

>>drnick+Zi
>bypass local DNS servers

There are easy ways to fix that at the router level, but DNS-over-HTTPS clowns ruined this.

>>sherr+cc
Spot on! My samsung TV menus are soooo much better in terms of snappiness by having Pi-Hole running and also setting up DNAT for those IoT devices who want to hardcode their DNS.

>>jayd16+Yj
There are native, easily accessible ublock variations for Firefox for Windows, Linux and Android.

A lot of nerds also have some form of private overlay network with default DNS to adguard or pihole or similar, again, making for identical adblock experience on all platforms.

>>drnick+(OP)
I personally feel differently about the Pihole. I run one and it blocks a lot of telemetry traffic from smart TVs, apps like Netflix, etc. that are not originating from a browser. I'm showing a 23.1% block rate today.

But for my use case, I like having the Pihole UI to see the charts and it's nice for temporarily unblocking one domain, etc.

Here is an excellent alternative to running Pihole that I've used before: https://www.geoghegan.ca/unbound-adblock.html

>>drnick+Zi
> The best thing would be not to connect any "smart" TV to the Internet.

Agree! I regret letting my Vizio TV stay online for as long as I did.

At first it was fine, and I did get a UI refresh a couple years back that was OK.

But then some update caused it to start ripping control away from whatever my last HDMI input was so it could show me ads (which fails). Even though it's perma-offline now, it still messes with my inputs sometimes.

>>accrua+to
> I personally feel differently about the Pihole. I run one and it blocks a lot of telemetry traffic from smart TVs, apps like Netflix, etc. that are not originating from a browser. I'm showing a 23.1% block rate today.

Damn. I played around with PiHole years ago on an original Raspberry Pi Model B, and kinda forgot about it--it broke some stuff, and most of my connected devices could run their own adblocker.

Only in the past year did I finally buy a "Smart" TV and leverage its existing GoogleTV apps, because I got tired of trying to maintain my aging Kodi Box. I should probably setup PiHole anew and point my Smart TV's DNS at it...

>>boiler+uk
> DNAT (Destination Network Address Translation)

Yes! This is easy to do on OpenBSD as well, though it's called "redirect" instead of "DNAT":

    pass in quick on $int_if inet proto udp to any port 53 rdr-to $dns_server port 53
    pass in quick on $int_if inet proto tcp to any port 53 rdr-to $dns_server port 53

>>1dom+el
Yes and it seems great but there's no denying its not widely used.

>>jayd16+Av
Okay, but what does it matter? The options exist for people who want them, nonetheless.

>>drnick+Zi
I thought Pi-holes were supposed to block connections to blacklisted domains, not merely serve as local DNSs. Is that not what they do?

>>1dom+el
There are plenty of great adblockers on iPhone too.

>>fluori+XB
Because were talking about the current usage of ad blockers, not what options exist.

>>jayd16+Yj
iOS (Safari) also has uBlock now.

>>drnick+c41
I run ublock in all my browsers and devices, but other people on my network (family) don't, so pihole helps there. Its really not an either-or question, they are complementary.

>>accrua+7s
I also redirect port 53 traffic, and in addition filter traffic to "well known" public DNS servers like 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, 9.9.9.9 and many others (lists can be found on GitHub), but this is ineffective against ads and telemetry served from hardcoded IPs.

Overall, it's just easier not to connect "smart" devices to the Internet at all. I prefer to use a Linux HTPC instead of a smart TV for example. It is completely under my control and I am not restricted to apps approved by Apple or Google, asked to log into anything or to accept ever-changing terms and conditions.

>>drnick+(OP)
> First, ad blockers running in the browser are simply more effective.

On my phone I do both: I use AdGuard DNS to block ads system-wide, and Vivaldi's built-in ad blocker to block those ads that still slip through.

>>drnick+(OP)
> "After years with Pi-hole, which now blocks over a million domains, I’ve become incredibly accustomed to a mostly ad-free web. Without realizing it, I’d forgotten what the typical internet experience feels like."

I'm curious when I see quotes like this - are people exposing their home network to the internet? Or running a pi-hole in the cloud? VPN'ing into the home network? Or what?

I have run a pi-hole in the traditional sense (a raspberry pi with pi-hole software on my home network with my home router DNS pointing at it). But this doesn't prevent me from seeing ads when I'm out and about on 5G or public wifi or work wifi or whatever.

As an aside I stopped running pi-holes at home for reliability reasons. Lots of failed SD cards, locked up raspberry pis etc became more aggravation than it was worth. It's a neat system - when it's working.

>>Admira+8q
I bought an apple tv box so I could disconnect my samsung TV from the internet forever. I think no matter what you do they will find a way to spy on you through your TV. I'm sure there are android boxes that will do as well as apple TV too.

>>accrua+7s
This config is surprisingly easy to read.

>>EasyMa+ny1
One could argue however that the Apple TV box also spies on you. It is just more limited in its ability to be malicious because it does not have a microphone or a camera. But it is still a problem because Apple, like Google, has fingers in many pies (phones, email, file storage, watches, smart devices) and can build very detailed profiles of individuals.

>>encom+bk
Smart devices always had the option of using their own resolver mechanism that you can't interfere with or just hard-code the IPs.

I don't like DoH due to the central gatekeepers its current implementation in browsers encourages but I don't think it really changes anything here.