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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

#61

Post by close04 »

jlkuester7 wrote: post #56
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 recently spent a bunch of time comparing NextDNS vs PiHole. The reality is their features-sets are pretty close, but I eventually settled on NextDNS and here were some of my takeaways: NextDNS Pros: * Can use NextDNS on any network (thanks to their apps or just regular DNS-over-HTTP/TLS). * (Could get similar functionality on PiHole with a remote hosted PiHole + VPN, but much more complex to setup) * NextDNS allows…

Do you think PiHole addresses the downsides with their v5 release (now in beta)?

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

#62

Post by hnarn »

darkteflon wrote: post #39
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…

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…

The only downside is that you're now using a free cloud service, so there's the obvious privacy concerns, and the possibility their servers will go down. It's really just a matter of the classic "free cloud vs. self hosted" pros/cons as usual.

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

#63

Post by hnarn »

ignoramous wrote: post #54
noisy_boy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for mentioning it - I just started using it and seems great. I particularly like being able to setup multiple profiles that lets me have strong parental control configuration for kids - ability to view logs is also good though the search can do with some improvements.

> setup multiple profiles that lets me have strong parental control configuration for kids I've been using it too, but I've found nextdns go down from time to time. How are you dealing with explaining how to change the DNS setting to people at home because "internet doesn't work"? I wish DoH client implementations had support for primary and secondary endpoints [0]. I've seen people straight up uninstall DoH clients…

> How are you dealing with explaining how to change the DNS setting to people at home because "internet doesn't work"?

I may be mistaken here but I thought the reason almost all operating systems allow you to specify more than one DNS is in case the primary one goes down. So if you specify NextDNS as the primary and say, Google or whatever, as the secondary: you likely won't see downtime (but obviously the filtering will disappear until the primary one comes back up and/or DNS caches reset etc)

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

#64

Post by dimkr1 »

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…

> 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

I'm using https://github.com/dimkr/nss-tls with https://github.com/dimkr/dohli on Linux and it works well. Everything, not just the browser, uses DoH and with endless customization, since I own the server.

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

#65

Post by correct_horse »

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…

To be clear, nextdns is a hosted service, whereas Maza and Pi-hole are local services.

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

#66

Post by noisy_boy »

ignoramous wrote: post #54
noisy_boy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for mentioning it - I just started using it and seems great. I particularly like being able to setup multiple profiles that lets me have strong parental control configuration for kids - ability to view logs is also good though the search can do with some improvements.

> setup multiple profiles that lets me have strong parental control configuration for kids I've been using it too, but I've found nextdns go down from time to time. How are you dealing with explaining how to change the DNS setting to people at home because "internet doesn't work"? I wish DoH client implementations had support for primary and secondary endpoints [0]. I've seen people straight up uninstall DoH clients…

In my case, my daughter so far accesses internet primarily via specific apps on the family tablet so any websites not opening are not an issue yet. Moving to nextdns is more of an preemptive move as I just gave her my old laptop; eventually she will be on the internet by herself (intentionally or accidentally) so hopefully this helps with that.

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

#67

Post by obituary_latte »

donclark wrote: post #59
jlkuester7 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently spent a bunch of time comparing NextDNS vs PiHole. The reality is their features-sets are pretty close, but I eventually settled on NextDNS and here were some of my takeaways: NextDNS Pros: * Can use NextDNS on any network (thanks to their apps or just regular DNS-over-HTTP/TLS). * (Could get similar functionality on PiHole with a remote hosted PiHole + VPN, but much more complex to setup) * NextDNS allows…

Another PiHole pro is that it can work for every device in your house (if you set it up that way).

You can also splurge and for under $10/mo set it up on a DigitalOcean (or similar) cheap hosting provider and have it available everywhere. And you can share with friends and family.

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

#69

Post by driverdan »

fuzzy2 wrote: 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 have a large hosts file on my Mac with Steven Black's blocklists. It takes a few seconds to load in vim but doesn't seem to cause any problems with lookups.

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

#70

Post by lonelappde »

steveharman wrote: post #68

I wonder why the pi-hole tram doesn't also offer a paid tier (that they host), to help those who can't or don't want to roll their own? It could help fund future development and maintrnance costs.

Maybe they already have a full-time job?

Anyway, it's free software. Anyone in the world can do that if they want. You can do that.

Also, it's poorly scoped. Pihole is just an app. Any ownclowd provider can more efficiently host it along with a bundle of every other app people want to "own" but not run locally.

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