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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

#261

Post by dredmorbius »

Drumlin wrote: post #78
legohead wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad blockers do a lot more than just block domains. They look for and remove divs/DOM elements that contain known ad naming schemes and remove them from the page. And if a site decides to start combating the ad blockers, the adblock list providers will update their rules specifically for the site in question. Adblock users get upset whenever they see ads, and report them pretty quickly. The business I work for tried b…

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.

For informational sites, I'll block sites that violate my preferred conditions, and load them up in third-party tools, e.g., Archive.is, on the rare occasion I find an interest in their content.

Almost universally, it's not worth it.

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

#262

Post by dredmorbius »

tajen wrote: post #100
taejo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, adblockers also use things like div ids, and potentially even heuristics like image shape.

Safari itself is an ad-blocker, with its "reader mode". I could hardly imagine opening a newspaper page without it. Actually, my iPad 2 isn't powerful enough anymore to open a newspaper page, except if I use the reader mode.

Firefox as well. I use Pocket as a perferred reader generally, though its failure to provide a means of navigating directly to sites, or of showing a navbar, is annoying.

(Pocket ... has multiple annoyances. It's better than the alternatives, so far as I've tried, but that is one hellaciously low-set bar.)

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

#263

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

Firewall rewrite rules, direct to the DNS server of your choice.

IP (and BGP) are ultimately concensus realities.

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

#264

Post by toad_tyrrant »

wtfishackernews wrote: post #47
toad_tyrrant wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a decent idea. I have never used Tor though, and I can't say I know the consequences of running a relay. So I'd probably skip that.

As long as you don't run an exit relay, it should be completely safe and legal. The EFF has a good write-up about it https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html

Actually, that is quite interesting. Thank you for the link.

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

#265

Post by toad_tyrrant »

polartx wrote: post #138
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.

I hadn't seen DietPi before. Right now I'm running minimal Ubuntu - it seems reasonable enough.

HomeAssistant looks interesting too.

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

#266

Post by a3n »

nattaylor wrote: post #127
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…

Are you in-market for a car?

No, and I haven't been searching cars for any reason.

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

#267

Post by zmix »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #191
Animats wrote: post #132

This is just a DNS filter. Why is it a big deal? DNS filters sort of work, but they're not new or magic. They trigger some ad-blocking detectors when the ads don't load.

If you need something more powerful you can have a similar setup with Privoxy. I have a script[1] that regularly downloads the adblock lists and converts them into filter/action files for Privoxy plus some custom rules. It's faster than a browser plugin and every device on the LAN can use it. It has a somewhat antiquated web UI and writing the rules it's not particularly user-friendly but it's working really well for…

I used Privoxy since the days it was called Internet Junkbuster (90's), but got rid off it half a year ago, or so. It just does not filter enough anymore. Most ads came through. uBlock Origin (Firefox) gives much much better results. Privoxy is anti-innovative, as hell. Where are the regular updates to the filter-lists, like with all the other tools? Or sharing them in a cloud? Still no javascript injection/inline-execution in order to satisfy the complex Javascript ads? Still all being based on regular expressions? Before HTML5 we had ten years of XHTML, that could have been xpath'ed, xslt'ed, used for filtering. Now we have nodeJS. None of these modern technologies get used. It's still C and regex).

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

#268

Post by zant95 »

laumars wrote: post #135

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 u…

To complete your list, these are the sources I use in my own script: https://github.com/zant95/hBlock#sources

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

#269

Post by khedoros1 »

jcfrei wrote: post #65
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…

The most promising front against ad blockers is forcing users to access your content with an application you control. That's why more and more websites want you to install their apps (Google search is installed by default on lots of android devices). It's very unfortunate that the incentives of users and content creators / advertisers aren't aligned very well and we will probably end up with most content creators dum…

That's an immediate way to lose my eyes. I hate using my phone when I don't have to, and I hate installing site-specific apps even more. I'm already using a computer with a nice screen, mouse, and keyboard. Why would I want to use something with a tiny screen and touch input instead?

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

#270

Post by khedoros1 »

ikeboy wrote: post #61
legohead wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad blockers do a lot more than just block domains. They look for and remove divs/DOM elements that contain known ad naming schemes and remove them from the page. And if a site decides to start combating the ad blockers, the adblock list providers will update their rules specifically for the site in question. Adblock users get upset whenever they see ads, and report them pretty quickly. The business I work for tried b…

Start loading essential content via AJAX?

It seems like a lot of the "Show HN" shares do that kind of thing...from domains that my work blocks. If it sounds really cool I'll load it up on my phone. Otherwise, that's a great way to make me decide "not worth my time" and move on to the comment thread.
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