Anyone setup a pi-hole? (blackhole for internet ads)

[V00DOO]

You really have to wonder how ad companies are going to survive on the net as user-friendly things like chrome/firefox extensions continue to gain in popularity.

I wonder if at some point router manufacturers may include an ad-block feature for the general public that is too stupid to find these other methods.

I'm currently running an Asus router with tomato firmware that has a built in Adblock. The blacklist gets updated daily and does a great job at blocking YouTube ads especially on IOS devices.

 

[Rifter]

i looked into it and im too lazy to config this all myself

if someone sold a box that all i had to do was plug in and it worked i would pay for it

It took me less than 15 min to setup, the installing of the OS obviously took some time to download and install but as far as me sitting down and actively working on it too under 15 min. Installed OS, installed pi-hole(which is just running one command from the command line) and then enabling SSH so i can remotely log in, and done.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I'm currently running an Asus router with tomato firmware that has a built in Adblock. The blacklist gets updated daily and does a great job at blocking YouTube ads especially on IOS devices.

What is the adblock called exactly? I use Privoxy with my router with DD-WRT firmware

 

[Pantoot]

I am lazy and don't know anything about the pi's, so I just bought https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Complete-Starter-Kit/dp/B01C6Q2GSY
It was super easy to set up.

 

[Anubis]

It took me less than 15 min to setup, the installing of the OS obviously took some time to download and install but as far as me sitting down and actively working on it too under 15 min. Installed OS, installed pi-hole(which is just running one command from the command line) and then enabling SSH so i can remotely log in, and done.

i am someone who doesn't even know what SSH is

 

[RossMAN]

I'm currently running an Asus router with tomato firmware that has a built in Adblock. The blacklist gets updated daily and does a great job at blocking YouTube ads especially on IOS devices.

Thanks, I may go this route instead as I have the Tmobile router but still need to flash it.

The Pi3 sounds like a fun project in the future though, we're having internet problems so I'd like to build a simpler version of this:
http://blog.kugelfish.com/2013/05/raspberry-pi-internet-access-monitor.html

When internet is working green light, when it's down red light. Is there an easier way to accomplish that?

 

[Rifter]

i am someone who doesn't even know what SSH is

Then you likely dont need it, you can use the web interface to configure and monitor the Pi-hole software after its installed. I just prefer having remote command line access to the Pi so use SSH.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Question: Are there no publicly available DNS servers that offer the same blackholing of ad hosts? Seems to me that there be no reason why everyone needs to set up their own local DNS server to accomplish this.

There are likely ways to accomplish this with most locally hosted DNS servers, including BIND on *nix and even Microsoft's Windows Server DNS.

 

[Pantoot]

Question: Are there no publicly available DNS servers that offer the same blackholing of ad hosts? Seems to me that there be no reason why everyone needs to set up their own local DNS server to accomplish this.

Maybe, but part of the beauty of this is you can easily whitelist or blacklist domains on your own. For example, I think you need to whitelist something for spotify to work (not sure, since I don't use it.) With pi-hole, its really simple to do something like that. Or you can look at all the dns requests and choose other stuff to block, for example looking at my log i can see that recently I have been getting a lot of lookups for msmetrics.ws.sonos.com. I googled it and saw what data sonos was starting to collect. It was a simple press of the blacklist button and now those requests will fail.

 

[R0H1T]

Question: Are there no publicly available DNS servers that offer the same blackholing of ad hosts? Seems to me that there be no reason why everyone needs to set up their own local DNS server to accomplish this.

There are likely ways to accomplish this with most locally hosted DNS servers, including BIND on *nix and even Microsoft's Windows Server DNS.

There are, though not as flexible as the piehole ~

https://dns.norton.com/configureRouter.html
https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html

 

[Rifter]

Question: Are there no publicly available DNS servers that offer the same blackholing of ad hosts? Seems to me that there be no reason why everyone needs to set up their own local DNS server to accomplish this.

There are likely ways to accomplish this with most locally hosted DNS servers, including BIND on *nix and even Microsoft's Windows Server DNS.

Yeah im going to keep my pi-hole even if this is the case, I prefer to be in charge of whats white/black listed not someone else.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Here's a detailed thread from the Ubiquiti forums with instructions on setting this up on a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter. You get a nice web GUI for managing exclusions.

https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeM...g-amp-Blacklisting-v3-6-3-3-Easy/td-p/1344740

Here's a YouTube tutorial:

 

[sdifox]

I just use pfBlockerNG

 

[sdifox]

I plan on actually giving this a go either Friday or this weekend, depending when I can make it to Micro Center. I may actually swing by there tonight as I may be around the area. I just ordered a case/power supply from Amazon for it and I already have a spare 8gb micro SD card with the OS on it so it should only take a few minutes to get this thing up and running. I'll let you all know how it goes after I get it done.

just setup pfsense or sophos already.

 

[purbeast0]

just setup pfsense or sophos already.

no u

 

[sdifox]

no u

I have pfsense...

 

[FeuerFrei]

There are, though not as flexible as the piehole ~
...
https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html

Hmm ... they also offer an Android app. I guess all the app does is switch your DNS entries when installed, then sits back and spies on your device in perpetuity (guessing).

 

[pete6032]

Yes. It works great and keeps all the bullshit out. Especially those pesky Youtube ads.

What lists are you using? I have like 85% of ads blocked but I still see bullshit clickbait on news websites.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Many things can't be blocked via DNS. For instance, if the ads are served from the same host as the site you're on (say www.nytimes.com) then those will still be served.

Another would be those served from random IP addresses instead of host names on a blacklist. I was reading through the Ubiquiti thread and someone asked about YouTube ads and why they weren't being blocked. They can't be blocked via DNS because YouTube serves them up using dynamically generated IP addresses that don't come from IP blocks that can themselves can be safely blocked.

I can see the value of using this for devices, but for browsing via computer I don't think it will ever supplant extensions like Adblock or Ghostery.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah you almost need an IP based and host based blacklist. IP could be blocked at firewall and host at DNS. I had toyed with the idea of setting something like this up at one point but never did it. I'm thinking I could have an alias in pfsense and then some process gets a list of malicious IPs and just updates the alias then set the alias in a block rule. Never scripted anything of that nature in pfsense though, but it does have SSH, so in theory it could be done.

What I'd probably do is make it so it applies to my main vlan and wireless vlan, but not the others. That way if I need to troubleshoot an issue I can just plug into the other vlan.

One thing I do need to do is block all the M$ telemetry stuff too. I don't have windows 10 but do have a few windows 7 VMs, some of which I had to run updates on. yea I can start googling which updates I need to ignore etc but it would be easier to just block the telemetry completely and not have to worry.

 

[sdifox]

Yeah you almost need an IP based and host based blacklist. IP could be blocked at firewall and host at DNS. I had toyed with the idea of setting something like this up at one point but never did it. I'm thinking I could have an alias in pfsense and then some process gets a list of malicious IPs and just updates the alias then set the alias in a block rule. Never scripted anything of that nature in pfsense though, but it does have SSH, so in theory it could be done.

What I'd probably do is make it so it applies to my main vlan and wireless vlan, but not the others. That way if I need to troubleshoot an issue I can just plug into the other vlan.

One thing I do need to do is block all the M$ telemetry stuff too. I don't have windows 10 but do have a few windows 7 VMs, some of which I had to run updates on. yea I can start googling which updates I need to ignore etc but it would be easier to just block the telemetry completely and not have to worry.

Err install package called pfBlockerNG...no need to script.

 

[SheHateMe]

What lists are you using? I have like 85% of ads blocked but I still see bullshit clickbait on news websites.

This one guy's list from the Pi-Hole subreddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/61rh4i/your_pihole_lists/dfgoi19/

 

[luv2liv]

pi-hole is great! while u r at it, add a print server to it too. it converted my old usb Brother laser printer into a network printer so that any machine on the network can print.
i have another rpi to do HomeAssistant for home automation, another 4 in each room to play music. 1 for a smart mirror, 1 as a NAS, and finally another 1 to play movies. yeah, im an addict....

 

[purbeast0]

I got another Pi3 tonight, gonna get it set up tomorrow after I get off work. I don't own a printer though though so won't be making a print server.

 

[pete6032]

It took me about an hour to set up. I followed a couple tutorials on YouTube. Most complicated part was figuring out how to set up the pi as the DNS server on my router.