Pi Hole - network-wide ad blocking

[murgero]

@imc67 said in Pi Hole - network-wide ad blocking:

Only in combination with a VPN like WireGuard it's a perfect combination to be online, outside of your 'safe home wifi', without sniffing of mobile providers proxies and "free open wifi", and with a kind of safetynet by Pi-Hole.

This is a common misconception - Just because you are using a VPN does not mean you are completely safe. Sure you maybe safe from traffic sniffers at your local mcdonalds or starbucks, but a VPN that is tied to your name and a device that has other software on it like facebook, twitter, etc still makes you vulnerable to data leakage, tracking and more.

[marcusquinn]

@murgero Exactly that! There's a reason why not one single bank in the world has "Login with Google/Facebook/Twitter" etc.

[girish]

@savity I did give pi-hole a try but it was really hard to package from source easily. I managed to instead package the new kid in the block - AdGuard. Some reviews here https://home-assistant-guide.com/2020/09/26/adguard-home-vs-pi-hole-2020-two-ad-and-internet-tracker-blockers-compared/ and https://mariushosting.com/synology-adguard-vs-pi-hole/ . It requires some support from the platform, depending on time we might add it to Cloudron 6 (or the release after). https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3075/adguard-network-wide-ads-trackers-blocking-dns-server is the forum topic for that.

[savity]

@girish Sad to hear thath Pi-hole didn't workout but lets see how AdGuard is Thanks for your Work

[murgero]

@girish I have adguard installed via homeassistant on a RPi4 and it works just as pi-hole does. Admin UI looks similar as well. I'd suspect you will find little to no complaints on packaging adg or pih.

[girish]

@murgero Yes, it also seems adh has some important features like DoH.

[girish]

Adguard Home will be available in Cloudron 6 - https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3075/adguard-network-wide-ads-trackers-blocking-dns-server . It is similar to pi hole (and more feature rich).

[varunsridharan]

@girish i would love to see PI-Hole in Cloudron.

And option to setup Pihole with Android Private DNS which requires DNS-over-TLS

and i wrote a quick setup script for Pihole DNS-over-TLS

https://github.com/varunsridharan/pi-hole-android-private-dns/blob/main/pi-hole5.sh

[girish]

I have added an option to make the DNS server of the OpenVPN app configuration - https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3875/adding-custom-dns-server . So, you can install AdGuard Home and OpenVPN and then make OpenVPN use AdGuard as the DNS server.

[girish]

Just leaving a note here for people looking into pi-hole. Starting 6.2, Cloudron also supports DoT (DNS over TLS) in AdGuard Home. This makes it work out of the box in Android phones.

[jdaviescoates]

@girish so if I've got this right, I could AdGuard to stop any ads ever being shown on the Android tablet my kids use? (most are blocked already either using uBlock Origin in the browsers or e.g. NewPipe instead of YouTube - although I can't uninstall YT on this machine and no doubt the kids will find and open it at some point)

Could I somehow achieve that using a Cloudron installed on a VPS, or is AdGuard something I'd need running on a machine at home? Thanks!

[necrevistonnezr]

@jdaviescoates
yes, you can do that (mind you that you can filter ads based on domains etc - there are sneaky ads that you can’t catch with a DNS filter (e.g. if they come from the same domain as the content, etc). But it helps a lot.

IMHO it’s easier though to just get a dedicated Raspberry Pi, put www.dietpi.com on it, and you should be good to go with Pi-Hole, Unbound, and encrypted DNS in minutes. It has A LOT of other apps as well including AdGuard Home (and many you won’t even find on Cloudron such as Wireguard, Home Assistant, Pydio, Plex, etc.) - though not dockerized - but I like to have this dedicated little device kept simple and not facing the internet.Just servicing the local network with some services.

[jdaviescoates]

@necrevistonnezr thanks, so just be clear it sounds like I would need a machine at home to take advantage of this stuff, right?

Or is it somehow possible to use a VPS too?

Thanks!

[necrevistonnezr]

@jdaviescoates yes, a „machine“ at home (well, it’s just a tiny box)