I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS • Hacker News Board

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#11

Post by MattSayar » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:24 PM UTC

djaychela wrote: post #9

Have to say I've never had a single issue with pihole unlike the OP. It's literally been "install and forget" - not a single outage in maybe 3 years of use. When I use the Internet elsewhere I see what a good job it does when I'm at home...

Do you think that's because of the hardware you're running it on? Do you actually use a Raspberry Pi or something more resilient?

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#12

Post by neilv » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:24 PM UTC

mihaaly wrote: post #6

Is this a paid article (ad)?

Some of the language does sound like they're pitching a gizmo on TV, to separate retirees from their money. But still within the range of how genuine people sound enthusiastic when they've found a lifehack.

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#13

Post by ahepp » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

bhaney wrote: post #2

I've just been dumping ad blocking hosts files into /etc/hosts.d/ on my router since long before pi-hole was a thing.

I find pi-hole fascinating since it shows there is a sizeable market for open Linux routers in the home, but for some reason people seem fixated with running it on a raspberry pi. That’s fine, but it seems like the worst of all worlds? I wouldn’t say the Pi is particularly reliable, and it doesn’t have a switch chip inside it, or enough beef for heavier processing.

It’s all just standard *nix software that will work on anything from my SFP module running openwrt, to a reflashed MIPS Ubiquiti router, to my x86 FreeBSD box.

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#14

Post by Hikikomori » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:26 PM UTC

MattSayar wrote: post #11

djaychela wrote: post #9

Have to say I've never had a single issue with pihole unlike the OP. It's literally been "install and forget" - not a single outage in maybe 3 years of use. When I use the Internet elsewhere I see what a good job it does when I'm at home...

Do you think that's because of the hardware you're running it on? Do you actually use a Raspberry Pi or something more resilient?

I just run it in a Docker container on my NUC that i upgrade occasionally, no issues for years.

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#15

Post by mfro » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:28 PM UTC

djaychela wrote: post #9

Have to say I've never had a single issue with pihole unlike the OP. It's literally been "install and forget" - not a single outage in maybe 3 years of use. When I use the Internet elsewhere I see what a good job it does when I'm at home...

I have also had 0 issues with pihole, but switched to technitium for the extra features. Only issues I have had were related to the SD card. Turned off query logging and 0 issues since. SD cards are an awful place to run an OS from.

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#16

Post by ahepp » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:28 PM UTC

ahepp wrote: post #13

bhaney wrote: post #2

I've just been dumping ad blocking hosts files into /etc/hosts.d/ on my router since long before pi-hole was a thing.

I find pi-hole fascinating since it shows there is a sizeable market for open Linux routers in the home, but for some reason people seem fixated with running it on a raspberry pi. That’s fine, but it seems like the worst of all worlds? I wouldn’t say the Pi is particularly reliable, and it doesn’t have a switch chip inside it, or enough beef for heavier processing. It’s all just standard *nix software that will work…

In classic HN fashion I forgot to mention that the nice web UI must play a key role here, and make up for all the other UX issues that come with using a pi rather than just “apt-get dnsmasq”

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#17

Post by djaychela » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:29 PM UTC

MattSayar wrote: post #11

djaychela wrote: post #9

Have to say I've never had a single issue with pihole unlike the OP. It's literally been "install and forget" - not a single outage in maybe 3 years of use. When I use the Internet elsewhere I see what a good job it does when I'm at home...

Do you think that's because of the hardware you're running it on? Do you actually use a Raspberry Pi or something more resilient?

It's running on my home server which is a low powered celeron J3120 (I think) on Ubuntu LTS , so possibly that may make a difference, although I've used pis in long term always on other applications and they've been fine but perhaps pihole may be too much for a pi.

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#18

Post by bhaney » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:29 PM UTC

vwadhwani wrote: post #5

bhaney wrote: post #2

I've just been dumping ad blocking hosts files into /etc/hosts.d/ on my router since long before pi-hole was a thing.

Works great for PCs, but my pi-hole doubles as a VPN and lets me block ads on my iPhone too.

> my pi-hole doubles as a VPN

So does any non-trash router.

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#19

Post by CharlesW » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:30 PM UTC

I'm also a very happy NextDNS user. A couple other thoughts for anyone considering this:

• The free plan supports 300,000 queries/month (all features, unlimited devices, unlimited configurations) and is a great and simple way to test drive it.

• If you like the idea but want more knobs, many people are also happy with competitor Control D. I'd just caution that the two-year-old comparison¹ on their site is just wrong about several claims (including "lower latency") and is not without problems itself². I looked at them and chose NextDNS as a better "set and forget" option that also plays well with Tailscale³.

¹ https://controld.com/blog/control-d-vs-nextdns/ ² https://www.reddit.com/r/ControlD/comments/1irgehp/178ms_lat... ³ https://tailscale.com/kb/1218/nextdns

Re: I ditched my Pi-hole but still block ads with NextDNS

#20

Post by toywinder » Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

MattSayar wrote: post #11

djaychela wrote: post #9

Have to say I've never had a single issue with pihole unlike the OP. It's literally been "install and forget" - not a single outage in maybe 3 years of use. When I use the Internet elsewhere I see what a good job it does when I'm at home...

Do you think that's because of the hardware you're running it on? Do you actually use a Raspberry Pi or something more resilient?

I have been running pi-hole on a raspberry for years with no downtime, op is either pitching for the DNS provider or they have not deployed their pi-hole correctly.