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Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

pi-hole.net

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Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#131

Post by m-p-3 »

nkkollaw wrote: post #30

With all the ad blocking technologies that are coming up, I wonder if Google is devising something to counteract these efforts. For instance, since browser-based ad blockers work from what I know by blocking known domain names, couldn't Google create random subdomains and serve the code from a different subdomain every day or even every few hours, as well as change the way their JavaScript and HTML looks? Even someth…

Some devices like the Chromecast and some Chromebook do not use your network DNS settings by default and rely on 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 for DNS queries.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#133

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

a3n wrote: post #123

This could be in response to any number of comments on this page: I use uBO and a few other blockers. I almost never see an ad. A few days ago I saw an ad, and I was surprised. It was for Cadillac cars. I hovered over the ad, and it seemed to go directly to cadillac.com. And I was sort of OK with that. The page, and the ad, seemed to be designed like any other legitimate link to another page or site. I don't know how…

If all ads were a picture with a link served as part of the page, I wouldn't use an adblocker. I read newspapers full of ads and don't really mind -- the ads make the local weekly free!

But it wasn't me who started an arms race decades ago with pop-over/under chains and escalated with tracking scripts, auto-playing videos, and bidding platforms serving malware.

Are advertisers really surprised people opt out of such toxic behavior?

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#134

Post by erelde »

erelde wrote: post #28
cphoover wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you care to you can easily view the contents before executing them. `curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net` It's only 1400 lines of code. At least it has TLS to prevent a MITM

ಠ_ಠ Looking at brew.sh.

Correction: they corrected it.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#135

Post by laumars »

For those of us - myself included - who run a hosts file list (either using dnsmasq like Pi-hole or directly), here are the sources that Pi-hole use so you can add to your own solution:

https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/blob/master/adlists.defau...

There's a few on there I don't use and will look to implement. There's also a few they seem to have missed (perhaps intentionally?) so below I have included the lists I use in case it's useful for anyone else:

   http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts
   http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt
   http://adaway.org/hosts.txt
   http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?hostformat=hosts&showintro=0&mimetype=plaintext&useip=127.0.0.1
   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/data/StevenBlack/hosts
   http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/hostslist/hosts.txt
   http://www.montanamenagerie.org/hostsfile/hosts.txt

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#136

Post by Drumlin »

stagbeetle wrote: post #98
Drumlin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, that would be a sign that you are winning the battle. If enough websites fight ad blockers, especially big sites, and the people behind those ad blockers make clumsy mistakes, then users will reach a point where they uninstall the blocker.

> people behind those ad blockers make clumsy mistakes What "mistake?" That the developers couldn't foresee and block the exact elements against ad-blockers before they became real? Reading the parent comment, it seems users are not opposed to reporting specific instances for the greater good. This is obviously more energy consuming than uninstalling, so where do you get the idea people will all of a sudden stop usin…

It sounds like the people behind the ad blocker broke Ajax for that website while trying to block the ads - that's the mistake I am referring to.

You mention that native ads are gradually replacing direct ads as if it's a good thing. The good guys in the publishing industry go out of their way to prevents ads affecting content, they don't allow their writers/presenters etc to touch advertising and everything is clearly separate.

In the long term, ad blockers will just push out those people who are driven by ethics and you'll be left with the sleazy publications that are driven by PR. This is coming from someone who has dealt with PR agencies and constantly turned down proposals.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#137

Post by pc86 »

Drumlin wrote: post #126
pavel_lishin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they'll stop visiting the site.

Does it matter if they stop visiting the site? Considering that they are using resources without giving something back in return? I guess it could be argued that they might be promoting the site to other users. Other than that, they are essentially freeloaders and if a website has too many freeloaders it has to either get rid of them or convert them to something else. Or, I guess, the website could shut down complete…

If you're going to pirate a movie, you're probably not buying that movie. This is why on the whole piracy doesn't actually affect bottom line that much. Sure some folks would have rented it from their cable provider for $6 or whatever, but on the whole if you're going through the trouble of finding a good torrent and downloading it, you're not in the market to spend money on it.

Just the same, if you have an adblocker installed it's unlikely you're the type of person who is going to be clicking on ads anyway. And PPC ads are much, much more prevalent than impression-based ads. So if someone is blocking your ads, you're not losing anything. You get paid when someone clicks an ad, and if they're going to the trouble of blocking all ads, they're not clicking anything anyway.

You create a system where they won't or can't visit your site, and your traffic decreases, which will have an effect on your ad rates.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#138

Post by polartx »

toad_tyrrant wrote: post #14

I just set this up at home yesterday (using an Odroid C2). A very pleasant experience so far. I'm trying to find other services that are worth running in a similar fashion. Any ideas?

I'm running HomeAssistant from an Odroid C2 --its working perfectly.

If you haven't checked out DietPi yet, you should. It includes optimized installations for a few hundred things (including PiHole), from Mumble servers, to MAME emulators.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#139

Post by 24gttghh »

m-p-3 wrote: post #131
nkkollaw wrote: post #30

With all the ad blocking technologies that are coming up, I wonder if Google is devising something to counteract these efforts. For instance, since browser-based ad blockers work from what I know by blocking known domain names, couldn't Google create random subdomains and serve the code from a different subdomain every day or even every few hours, as well as change the way their JavaScript and HTML looks? Even someth…

Some devices like the Chromecast and some Chromebook do not use your network DNS settings by default and rely on 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 for DNS queries.

Seems like one could block google's DNS servers -or perhaps even all DNS requests not destined for your pi-hole server in this example- on the router side and the Chromecast will fallback to what DHCP is providing.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#140

Post by JoshMnem »

problems wrote: post #130
JoshMnem wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google makes efforts to prevent ad-blocking: - Google Chrome for mobile doesn't allow add-ons so you can't install ad-blockers. (You can install browser extensions with Firefox for Android.) - Google Chrome uses a dark pattern where the address bar tends to send users to the Google search results page instead of to their final destination (compare the behavior with Firefox's). That means that even if you have an ad-b…

> - Android doesn't provide fine-grained permissions control or root access, so users can't block ads. One caveat here - Google devices are probably some of the most allowing of root access and full device ownership - easily unlocked bootloaders basically allow it to be a one button process. Some manufacturers make you put your device on a shitlist with them before they'll give you a key to unlock the bootloader and…

I've never seen a way to root my phones without some risk of turning them into bricks. How would I quickly and safely get root access to a Galaxy Note III without risking the destruction of the device?
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