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Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

optimal.com

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Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#31

Post by benologist »

dingaling wrote: post #25
benologist wrote: post #4

This looks really cool, especially for the bajillion mobile-only people connecting straight through their telco without any ublock/ghostery/hosts/etc blocking. I am using a local DNS server that does this called Pihole [1] supplemented with additional blocklists [2] for malware and privacy. One thing I don't see is any statistics ... you might be surprised at how much software in your home is endlessly communicating…

It would be useful if their website described what exactly it installs. A recursive DNS server with a web UI and big list of null-routed domains? That's my guess. How does that help mobile users outside their home network without also setting up a VPN back in?

All it really requires is opening up port 53 to the internet but I don't know enough about securing a DNS server to take that step yet. I'm intending to continue working on my little offshoot and hopefully it will get to the point you could safely host it on digitalocean/aws/etc.

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#32

Post by joemccall86 »

How easy is it to temporarily switch it off if a site is broken? Like if they have some crucial JS/CSS served from a blocked domain? I also wonder this with the hosts file approach. Is that kind of flexibility you give up for speed?

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#35

Post by blinkingled »

justin_oaks wrote: post #34

If enough people blocked ads via DNS, I wonder how long it would be before we saw advertisers using plain IP addresses instead of DNS hostnames.

Would be more and more of a problem with most sites switching over to HTTPS - Cert mismatch warnings if your ad URL is https and mixed content warning if not. Besides how hard would it be for someone to add a rule to uBlock to block by-IP URL access?

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#37

Post by bitchypat »

profeta wrote: post #20

I will just leave this here http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ i put this hosts file on every device/router that i touch. It works fully local. So infinitely (and this is not even a hyperbole) faster and you won't have to exchange one privacy hole for another on the "cloud".

>infinitely (and this is not even a hyperbole) faster

Not if your HOSTS file is >135KB (the one you've provided is 373KB), you're using Windows 8 or earlier and you haven't disabled the DNS Client service.

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hostswin8.htm (about half way down)

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#38

Post by optimalrob »

buro9 wrote: post #5

One can achieve this locally, on a laptop/desktop, using https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts Or you can combine that with https://github.com/jlund/streisand to have a VPN service that happens to adblock (great for mobile). That said... I like that Optimal have made this too, because neither of the above can work for all devices in a household and more things in the house are tracking you and serving adverts (TV!). T…

Hi I'm the CEO of Optimal, Rob. We use open source lists of adservers but have had to evolve from those lists since some of them are invalid or overly aggressive. We do not and will never make decisions about what to block based on being paid by any of these companies. We are building a consumer filtering system, and we are responsible to consumers. If you try it out and find any sites that don't work as intended please email us or contact support.

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#39

Post by Nadya »

bitchypat wrote: post #37
profeta wrote: post #20

I will just leave this here http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ i put this hosts file on every device/router that i touch. It works fully local. So infinitely (and this is not even a hyperbole) faster and you won't have to exchange one privacy hole for another on the "cloud".

>infinitely (and this is not even a hyperbole) faster Not if your HOSTS file is >135KB (the one you've provided is 373KB), you're using Windows 8 or earlier and you haven't disabled the DNS Client service. http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hostswin8.htm (about half way down)

>...or earlier...

I've never had an issue on XP or 7 and I've used the same host file shared above with many, many more that I've personally added (my hosts file is nearly 500KB)

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#40

Post by optimalrob »

jgrahamc wrote: post #9

Now that's a blast from the past. Back in 1996 I joined a company in Mountain View called Optimal Networks, Inc. which had the domain name optimal.com. We sold the company to Compuware and the domain lived on for a while. If you search jgc@optimal.com you'll find ancient messages from me still lurking on the web. I wonder if that email still receives spam?

We get all kinds of crazy optimal spam!
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