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I had previously been playing around with bind configs to achieve the same thing but this is a much better solution.
I had a poke around on the website though and how to you get updates for the list?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) This is centralized so you wouldn't have to edit on every PC/device 2) It's a bit tricky to edit the hosts file on an iPhone..
You can put a hosts file on your router. That way it is automatic to ALL devices, no need for DNS tinkering.
So, DNS based blocking is both slow to react and needs constant vigilance. I think there are some open sourced DNS blacklists
Secondly, I'm confused by YouTube - I value the idea of interview with rosa parks, but it's then three clicks to any amount of violent over-sexualised rubbish.
I am interested in Adblock on a router - but mostly I am trying to prevent the "rubbish" getting through.
So I think there are few solutions beyond "turn off internet access unless I am sitting with you"
I use something similar. 1. get hosts file from http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm 2. install pdnsd (by default it reads and uses the hosts file)
I prefer to have a completely untouched internet connection and have a control of what to block on the end device. For example, it would drive me mad if the ISP/VPN decided to be so nice that they would block "malware", "rubbish" etc for me.
I use something similar. 1. get hosts file from http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm 2. install pdnsd (by default it reads and uses the hosts file)
Can you elaborate on what pdnsd does? I understand how editing the hosts file work, but this pdnsd thing is new to me. Thank you!
The performance was very good, and switching default DNS from Google to OpenNIC was easy enough, but the default blocklists included too many domains I needed to use (e.g. mailchimp.com) which were not explicitly ad domains. Whitelisting domains is possible but you have to drop what you are doing and SSH into the Pi, whitelist it and reload the config, then resume what you were doing.
But the real dealbreaker for me was that this is largely incompatible with NoScript and its 'Application Boundaries Enforcer' which gave me constant warnings due to some content being served from my LAN. The way pi-hole works is to intercept your DNS query for 'bad' domains, re-route it to its own server, and return an empty page. It is the return of an empty page over the LAN that was problematic.
Maybe someone more savvy could have made it all work together but at some point you have to evaluate the usability of this versus just toggling an ad-blocker with your browser. The browser ad blocker is just faster and easier when you need to override anything.