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Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

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Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#71

Post by neurostimulant »

oliwarner wrote: post #66
stordoff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One can achieve this locally, on a laptop/desktop, using https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts I use this with DD-WRT to get network-wide filtering. It's not perfect (only updates on router boot), but good enough for me. Additional DNSMasq options: addn-hosts=/tmp/ad-hosts no-resolv strict-order server=8.8.8.8 server=8.8.4.4 Startup script: wget -qO /tmp/ad-hosts-v4 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/host…

Urgh why do people have to be so POSIX about things. Here is the content of my /etc/cron.daily/adblock file: #!/bin/bash wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts \ | sort -u \ | awk '/^0/ {print;print ":: " $2}' \ > /tmp/ad-hosts service dnsmasq reload I know cycles are cheap but that doesn't mean we should be spaffing them up the wall when we can do things cheaper. This avoids doubl…

How is the performance of dns lookup when using dnsmasq? Is it faster than putting them on /etc/hosts? I tried putting the blocked domains in the /etc/hosts file, but the performance is terrible. It significantly increased dns lookup time on my i5 laptop (that was before I upgraded my laptop with ssd though), so I ended up configuring my own ad blocking dns server on a cheap Scaleway vps instead and never have any issue with long dns lookup anymore.

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#73

Post by wila »

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)

Not OP, but he said "device"/"router", not many of those run Windows 8.

FWIW I do the same, also use that host file at the border router and yes the difference is quite big. I'm always shocked about the extra adverts I see when using a computer or tablet outside of my own network.

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#74

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

optimalrob wrote: post #38
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 ple…

Hi,

Will you switch over to a paid service once you're out of beta?

Also what's your policy on logging?

Below (a probably outdated list of) privacy enhanced servers that don't log.

  # Swiss Privacy Foundation http://www.privacyfoundation.ch/de/service/server.html
  77.109.138.45
  77.109.139.29
  # www.censurfridns.dk http://www.censurfridns.dk/
  91.239.100.100
  89.233.43.71
  # CCC http://www.ccc.de/censorship/dns-howto
  85.214.20.141 
  204.152.184.76
  194.150.168.168
  213.73.91.35
  # Comodo Secure DNS https://www.comodo.com/secure-dns/
  8.26.56.26
  8.20.247.20
  # DNS Watch https://dns.watch/index
  84.200.69.80
  84.200.70.40
  # Fool DNS http://www.fooldns.com/fooldns-community/
  87.118.111.215
  # Free DNS http://freedns.zone/
  37.235.1.174
  37.235.1.177
take the above list to find the one fastest for you:

  for i in `cat dns.txt|grep -v '^#'`
  do 
    qt=`dig @$i techcrunch.com| grep "Query time:" |cut -f2 -d ':'`
    echo "$i: $qt"
  done

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#75

Post by witty_username »

aphextron wrote: post #64
nherment wrote: post #7

Not sure what to think of it: An "ethical" ad blocking service launched Thursday that allows users to pay their favorite publishers not to show them ads. [...] With Optimal.com, users will pay a flat monthly fee (Leathern told Business Insider the exact amount hasn't been released, but it's likely to be a high single-digit number) to experience an ad free web. Source: http://uk.businessinsider.com/optimal-launches-su…

>"An "ethical" ad blocking service " All ad-blocking is ethical. It's the advertisers job to make me aware of products in a way that doesn't anger me, and they're doing a really shitty job.

When you adblock instead of not using adblock websites lose money.

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#78

Post by owly »

optimalrob wrote: post #38
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 ple…

@optimalrob Great work in simplifying ad blocking for all devices. Question, is Optimal working on an option to block adult content as well? OpenDNS Family Shield does an excellent job of this currently for home and school networks. We use it and dnsmasq to block all of the major ad networks. Good luck!

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#79

Post by themihai »

binaryanomaly wrote: post #11

Getting rid of ads in exchange for letting an additional third party know all my Web-surfing respective DNS-lookups? Not sure which one is worse ..?

Well... what DNS are you currently using now? Isn't a 3rd party? I had 8.8.8.8 so I guess the switch is no-brainer

Re: Optimal DNS Ad Blocker

#80

Post by IgorPartola »

I have tried DNS ad blocking based on one of the popular lists out there. Sadly it was overly aggressive. It cut off my access to sites like mint.com and the Google Analytics dashboard (need it for $WORK). It also made sites like Hulu not work because of their ads. Debugging why this was happening was a huge pain because for example Mint uses Intuit domain names that are like right levels deep CNAMES.

I am going to try this out, but here I would have even less control since I can't edit the zone file.

Edit: Just turned it on and cleared all relevant caches. Still seeing ads all over Google, CNN, BBC, Imgur and a few others. Don't think this works terribly well.

Edit 2: oh but now the Comedy Central app on my phone won't launch. Turning this off.

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