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Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

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Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#12
post #2

I've been using adguard's dns to block ads on my phone* because pi-hole isn't an option for me at the moment. Also set it on a colleague's phone and he's thanked me severally for it. * (dns.adguard.com private DNS in network settings on android pie)

Similar to that I've been using NextDNS - in addition to the adblock you also get custom whitelist/blacklist, analytics... and also supports DNS-over-TLS (works well with Android's Private DNS feature) and DNS-over-Https See: https://nextdns.io/

What can the analytics tell me?

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#13
post #10
post #9

the one reason i use pihole is to block ads network-wide. this kinda defeats that purpose.

yes, but you have pihole for that... this is if you don't need or want to issue a network wide block

i couldn't think of an use case for this? can you explain what would you use this for? if you already have pihole?

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#15
post #7

On Windows, a large hosts file may lead to noticeably slower name resolution performance. Maybe it's less of a problem on Linux/macOS...?

It did happen to me. I used StevenBlack's Unified hosts + fakenews + gambling + porn + social

It's over 1.4mb.

And after any edit to the host file, it'd take minutes before I could browse. (Hard drive)

When I switched to SSD, the delay dropped to less than a minute.

For domains I already visited, cached, there were no perceptible resolution delays.

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#16
post #7

On Windows, a large hosts file may lead to noticeably slower name resolution performance. Maybe it's less of a problem on Linux/macOS...?

I learned this the hard a few years back. The lookup performance was good enough, but every time I woke the computer up from sleep or rebooted it, it would spend ten minutes maxing out one or two cores trying to process a hosts file blocking all known malware/spyware/adware domains.

This took me ages to find the cause of, I had to use a lot of highly-escalated debuggers and such to figure out what the "system" process was trying to do that was costing so much time. Once I cleared out the hosts file, the problem was resolved.

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#17
post #13
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but you have pihole for that... this is if you don't need or want to issue a network wide block

i couldn't think of an use case for this? can you explain what would you use this for? if you already have pihole?

When you don't control DHCP (or the network as a whole)

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#18
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish iOS also supported private DNS natively. Seems like it would be right up Apple's street.

what is private DNS?

My explanation was wrong...

Google support page explation for private DNS doesn't explain anything. Just recommends leaving it on.

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#19
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to that I've been using NextDNS - in addition to the adblock you also get custom whitelist/blacklist, analytics... and also supports DNS-over-TLS (works well with Android's Private DNS feature) and DNS-over-Https See: https://nextdns.io/

What can the analytics tell me?

I've been using nextdns and I like it: for one thing, it can tell you the amount of blocked DNS queries, but it's also very helpful for troubleshooting since you can see the log of what was blocked, when, and why (which blocklist). You can then completely disable the blocklist, or whitelist specific entries if you prefer. It's a level of customization that I don't believe other DNS adblockers provide since many of them are designed to "just work".

Re: Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system

#20
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish iOS also supported private DNS natively. Seems like it would be right up Apple's street.

what is private DNS?

Private DNS is what Android calls DNS over TLS. It's basically normal DNS but with a TLS connection wrapped around it.

DoT is very easy to self host if you already run something like a pihole (using nginx to proxy a tcpstream + having it wrap a TLS connection around it) and can be exposed to the internet because it can work over TCP (thus reducing the DDoS risk factor significantly).

In Android there's a setting to enable it in the network settings. The default will be "off", if you pick "on" you'll probably be using Google's DNS servers, if you pick "hostname" you can pick a different server.

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