Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 138 posts

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

#41

Post by robertcope »

hnarn wrote: post #24

I've been using https://nextdns.io/ for a while and I really like it. You can do DNS over HTTPS through Firefox (sadly not on an OS level in Windows for example, but that's fine -- I'm sure OS level support works better on Linux), and it supports a lot of user-level customization. You can add and remove entire blocklists, you can black/white-list specific domains, see logs of your blocks, some analytics, create your…

NextDNS is great. I have tried various DNS services -- OpenDNS, Cleanbrowsing, Cloudflare Gateway, Quad9, etc and I keep coming back to NextDNS. Would definitely recommend giving it a try if you're looking for a solid DNS-based security/privacy setup.

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

#42

Post by hpliferaft »

vezycash wrote: 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)

I was a happy Adguard user for several years but found that some ads have come through lately. I did some research and switched to Blokada, which works well--sometimes too well; I have to temporarily deactivate it to use certain apps when I'm not on WiFi.

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

#43

Post by robertcope »

weego wrote: post #40
darkteflon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve just looked into this - it looks excellent. Can I ask: is this an all-round superior solution to running your own pi-hole? I set up dual redundant pi-holes on raspberry pi 4s on my home network but switching all devices to NextDNS would give me access to filtered DNS even when away from home, plus save me the trouble of running two raspis (including two Ubuntu instances) just for that purpose. Could anyone knowl…

I've been a user since it was first mentioned on HN and the major issue at the moment is the performance. I often have to turn it off to get sites to resolve at all, otherwise chrome hangs indefinitely. Having said that it's free (beta) right now so that's a statement of fact and by no means a complaint

You're saying you have this issue with NextDNS? I've been using it since it was mentioned here, as well, and have had zero issues that were not self-created. FWIW.

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

#44

Post by martimarkov »

imglorp wrote: post #38
swinglock wrote: post #29

Who is this for, what's the point? If you're using a computer on which installing this software is an alternative, you can install a web browser with an ad blocker, which performs much better than DNS based filters. If you're not using such a computer, Pi-Hole proves DNS filtering and this software doesn't. What's the use-case between these two that isn't already covered?

Chrome, for example, has banned some adblockers. Makes sense to me.

Out of curiosity which ones and is there a common pattern in their blockage philosophy?

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

#45

Post by op00to »

huhtenberg wrote: post #36
swinglock wrote: post #29

Who is this for, what's the point? If you're using a computer on which installing this software is an alternative, you can install a web browser with an ad blocker, which performs much better than DNS based filters. If you're not using such a computer, Pi-Hole proves DNS filtering and this software doesn't. What's the use-case between these two that isn't already covered?

Just for the sake of argument - to block trackers that are built into other software, eg. chat clients and some such.

I mean, ok. But you're allowing a chat client to run code on your PC... in the case I saw it was sudo. You can do a shitload more with sudo than you can with a browser extension.

I still don't get it.

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

#46

Post by jlkuester7 »

robertcope wrote: post #43
weego wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a user since it was first mentioned on HN and the major issue at the moment is the performance. I often have to turn it off to get sites to resolve at all, otherwise chrome hangs indefinitely. Having said that it's free (beta) right now so that's a statement of fact and by no means a complaint

You're saying you have this issue with NextDNS? I've been using it since it was mentioned here, as well, and have had zero issues that were not self-created. FWIW.

Same. Been using NextDNS regularly since it was first announced on HN and have not seen any performance issues since the first few days. Highly recommend!

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

#48

Post by StreamBright »

tuananh wrote: post #13
nxpnsv wrote: 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?

Yes, I am travelling a lot, I do not want to VPN in to my home from everywhere.

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

#49

Post by philliphaydon »

weego wrote: post #40
darkteflon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve just looked into this - it looks excellent. Can I ask: is this an all-round superior solution to running your own pi-hole? I set up dual redundant pi-holes on raspberry pi 4s on my home network but switching all devices to NextDNS would give me access to filtered DNS even when away from home, plus save me the trouble of running two raspis (including two Ubuntu instances) just for that purpose. Could anyone knowl…

I've been a user since it was first mentioned on HN and the major issue at the moment is the performance. I often have to turn it off to get sites to resolve at all, otherwise chrome hangs indefinitely. Having said that it's free (beta) right now so that's a statement of fact and by no means a complaint

I saw someone mention NextDNS on HN about 2 months and decided to try it.

The only issue's I've had is:

1. Epic Game Store was blocked - not an issue now as I uninstalled it and bought Borderlands 3 on steam. Now EGS is blocked again.

2. Adverts display in Google now that I don't have an ad-block, but it prevents me clicking them so I'm not fussed.

3. raygun.io is blocked - not sure why as it doesn't track any information of value as it's primarily used for crash reporting, and they are GDPR compliant.

Other than that, this has been amazing. I'm definitely going to be a paid customer once its out of beta.

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

#50

Post by XelNika »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #33
tuananh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For use on a laptop that you take into other networks (coffee shops, friends houses, work / client businesses). For use on a desktop in a network you do not control (e.g. many devs have complete local control over their own machine)

> For use on a laptop that you take into other networks

I VPN to my home (and by extension my Pi-hole server) when on that kind of network. A local ad-blocker doesn't prevent MITM or malicious DNS servers. Maza won't help if DHCP is handing out the IP for a server that claims google.com is a CNAME to hereisyourvirus.xyz or if the router is transparently redirecting DNS traffic so you don't even know what DNS server you are hitting. Which means you have to use DoH or DoT as well.

Post reply on HN