This might be a silly question, but why don’t you run a Pi-hole for ad blocking? When I search for info on it, people who use it swear by it, but at a site like this, where people seem to be more tech savvy, there is almost no mention of it.
Are there drawbacks that make it not worth the effort? Is it more difficult to set up than the 100 tutorials make it out to be?
And if you do run one, is it worth the effort?
(There are references here, but nothing recent.)
I’ve been running pi-hole for several years and it needs very little maintenance. The hardest part is the initial setup but the documentation on pi-hole.net is good and the maintainers are very responsive. It doesn’t block all ads but it gets the vast majority.
I imagine some people feel they don’t have enough command line expertise to do what’s necessary.
For me, it’s just that public DNS fits our family better right now and I don’t want to reverse proxy a Pi.
I consider running a pi-hole from time to time, but in the meantime I’m content with using mullvlad’s public DNS with Adguard’s public DNS as a fallback. Both services have great blocking and are free to use.
I don’t run Pi-hole because NextDNS works great for me and my family, also outside of our WiFi network(s).
(I’m using their Pro plan, so yes, a subscription, while Pi-hole is free)
Not everyone wants to put a DIY server as a critical element between themselves and the Internet.
It has to sit between your router and everything else on your network.
Yes, these types of geek server/utils are well supported and run, but tell that to your family when it fails for the first time when you are away on a business trip and your entire home is without Internet until you return 
I think that’s a misconception.
I run NextDNS as well, because of the profiles - I want to block all the ads / tracking links etc.
My OH, despite my encouragement, just wants stuff to work and clicks adlinks and doesn’t care.
When I was messing with a pi-hole there was no easy compromise - with nextdns I have everything set up on my devices for my profile and the family router as a less strict but still blocking some stuff.
I’m relatively new to NextDNS. I can’t believe how well it works. I installed/set it up on my iPhone, iPad, Mac mini, and my daughter’s iPad. Of course I exceeded the free threshold about 3 weeks in, but no ads in Apple News (previously unusable beforehand), way less junk getting through to my network – so worth the $25 or $30.
I’m still a little hesitant about trust/security with NextDNS themselves, but they seem to have a dedicated following and are as about as trustworthy as possible I guess.
Apparently I need to check out NextDNS instead. I did order a Raspberry Pi already though…
I actually just set up Umbrel on an old MacBook and pi hole is one of their apps they provide.
AT&T is my ISP and I’m just using the router/modem box they provide. Apparently their hardware doesn’t allow using anything else to control DNS, so I’m just using pi-hole on my personal devices, not the whole network. I did set it up on my appleTVs at first and 1) I don’t think it really blocked anything and 2) the VM on the MacBook that Umbrel was running crashed, so I woke up one morning and couldn’t get cartoons going for my son. That chalks up to user error in my opinion, I’m sure if I was running pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi it would be more stable.
And then when I check the actual metrics, it said it was blocking like 25% of DNS requests at first, but lately it’s been more like 5%, so I think you kind of have to go in and fiddle with the block lists and update it kinda regularly. Could be wrong there.
All that to say, it is kind of fun to tinker with and see what it’s doing, but all in all, I agree with everyone else here, there are better solutions.
+1
Even the commercial ad blockers, like those available on my router, can occasionally cause problems. I prefer to deal with ads, etc. on device.
My understanding of this, which I am not certain is correct, is that you can set secondary DNS for when it does fail. That Reddit thread is 6 years old, so I am not sure it still accurate.
What happens when it does fail? You lose internet until you fix it. I think the better question is, how often does it fail, and then, how quick/easy is it to fix it? This goes back to everyone who I have heard that does run one, seems to love it (Casey Liss of ATP for example). On the other hand a lot of people who love it are influencer types, so it’s hard to say if they really use it or if it’s just for the clicks.
Really depends. For Raspberry Pi, the microSD card is the hardware weak point. Since Linux boots and runs from it, reliability depends on file/disk usage.
Best to use an embedded platform like Intel NUC or upgrade the rpi to use a small external SSD if reliability is the goal.
Or run a VM on a larger system, but that’s another whole discussion and different tradeoff.
For those not aware, there is a huge hobbyist movement around home tech equipment, especially networking and storage called “Homelab-ing” with podcasts and YouTube channels that specialize and go really deep on the topic.
I hesitate to say that ATP is a bit “out-of-their-lane” when it comes to those topics. I love those guys but I do have “cringe-worthy” moments when they start talking about more than superficial networking and home automation topics.
That’s correct but, as @SpivR points out, the SD card is the weak link. Make sure you get a good one.
You could also run pi-hole in Docker on a Mac. Or a PC.
To be fair, Casey has never said anyone should do it, just that it is pretty cool. Macro runs a Unifi network I believe, but that might have changed, I don’t think he does anything fancy with it regardless. They definitely don’t do the Homelab type stuff.
But yep, YouTube has tons of channels on this stuff now.
Last year when I got a new NAS, I started doing more research on what I can use it for and how to make my network more secure, that led me down the Homelab route as a “fun” learning experience.
Also most of us tend to participate in a compartmentalized way. MPU isn’t the most narrow topical forum, but the scope is limited. It wouldn’t make sense for us Linux users to post here about how we use it, for example, or, while we occasionally mention TV and books, it’s a special, occasional thread. There are a bunch of web developers here but we rarely talk shop; same for other professions. etc.
My reasoning is exactly this. I try and keep things as simple as possible for the rest of the family. I’m the primary tech person at home, but there have been times when away where I’ve had to remotely diagnise and fix problem.
Fair enough, but this is an Apple/Mac related subject. And it is certainly a power users thing. Also, asking someplace like Reddit you tend to get a very skewed demographic.(I did read some threads there though as well.)
I expected most people would ignore this thread because 1) they didn’t know/care what it was or 2) because it was a stupid question. I was generally curious as to what the more technical people here would say about it. The response I got was generally inline with what I expected.
Anyway, I am glad I did ask. I learned some stuff and found out about NextDNS and Umbrel. (I knew what NextDNS was, I didn’t know it was good.)