Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by ChikkaChiChi » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

bilal4hmed wrote: post #16

With all the fervor around ad-blocking what I fail to see is how do you propose those sites that you visit, read their content to make money ? Are you willing to pay every site you visit or encourage them to put up pay walls ??

The "fervor" you mention has more to do with ads becoming ever more intrusive, third party content slowing down page loads, consuming bandwidth, and potentially being used for malware distribution than it does with wanting to take food off another person's table.

I regularly try browsing without adblocking on, and it's a constant nightmare. If sites held their advertising networks accountable to any reasonable set of standards, they wouldn't be in this situation.

The content I appreciate, I have found ways to support it.

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

#22

Post by Nux » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #3

Piskvorrr wrote: post #2

[tinfoilhat] Given that Chrome now became Google's weapon against adblocking, how long until it starts refusing to use Pi-hole specifically? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 [/tinfoilhat]

How would a web browser know which DNS it's using? You set your DNS preference to point to the PI-hole and it should behave like any other DNS server. I guess it could attempt to resolve some spam domain like doubleclick.net and if it was incorrect it could complain...

There is a clear and definite trend of taking DNS out of the user's control, see all the hype with DNS over HTTPS etc etc.

Firefox is working on using DoH (opt-in at the beginning, but who knows) from "select" providers. Chrome has a similar switch, surely. Same with Android 9, opt-in DoH, but maybe it'll become opt-out or no-opt in the future.

In the name of privacy and security of course, but with the totally unintended side effect of users unable to dodge ads via DNS/hosts. Interesting, no?

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

#23

Post by NoNotTheDuo » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

tbirrell wrote: post #4

I keep meaning to set one up one of these days. Does anyone know what effect a Pi-hole has on internet speed? I play a few games where latency is a big deal, and don't really want to artificially throttle my internet.

Echoing other posters. I had the same concern about throttling internet, but realized that your traffic doesn't flow through the pi-hole, just DNS requests (and those are cached). I've noticed no throttling.

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

#24

Post by bungie4 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #17

Pi-hole is my most prized addition to my connected home. It was simple to set up, easy to manage, and easy to access for whitelisting. Now, all of my devices throughout my network benefit from the service, as opposed to relying on locally installed solutions. If you aren't using it, you should!

Agreed, I combined this with Cloudflare's DNS service (1.1.1.1). A great combo.

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

#25

Post by yulaow » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

bilal4hmed wrote: post #16

With all the fervor around ad-blocking what I fail to see is how do you propose those sites that you visit, read their content to make money ? Are you willing to pay every site you visit or encourage them to put up pay walls ??

Do not use tracking ads. I whitelist any site which is not using tracking/profiling ads.

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

#26

Post by aw3c2 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

jto1218 wrote: post #19

bilal4hmed wrote: post #16

With all the fervor around ad-blocking what I fail to see is how do you propose those sites that you visit, read their content to make money ? Are you willing to pay every site you visit or encourage them to put up pay walls ??

you can pretty easily whitelist those sites.

Pi-Hole is a very simple DNS based blocker. You can not whitelist ad providers on a origin basis.

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

#27

Post by ztoben » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

bilal4hmed wrote: post #16

With all the fervor around ad-blocking what I fail to see is how do you propose those sites that you visit, read their content to make money ? Are you willing to pay every site you visit or encourage them to put up pay walls ??

I disable my adblocking for sites that use reasonable ads.

If I go to a site and am bombarded with pop ups, auto playing video ads, etc., then yeah why wouldn't I block them? With the malware and tracking that is often injected into ads I have no problem using my adblocker at all times and disabling it for pages that ask politely.

I'm happy to click on ads on sites that I frequent and would like to support. I think there's absolutely a balance here, and for many years the advertising industry has abused their stay.

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

#28

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

NetBeck wrote: post #14

imglorp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a web browser know which DNS it's using? You set your DNS preference to point to the PI-hole and it should behave like any other DNS server. I guess it could attempt to resolve some spam domain like doubleclick.net and if it was incorrect it could complain...

They could force Chrome to use Google's DNS over HTTPS.

[deleted]

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

#29

Post by samfriedman » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

tbirrell wrote: post #4

I keep meaning to set one up one of these days. Does anyone know what effect a Pi-hole has on internet speed? I play a few games where latency is a big deal, and don't really want to artificially throttle my internet.

Mine is both the DNS resolver and the DHCP server, due to limitations on my router, and I haven't noticed any big problems with latency/speed.

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

#30

Post by scohesc » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

bilal4hmed wrote: post #16

With all the fervor around ad-blocking what I fail to see is how do you propose those sites that you visit, read their content to make money ? Are you willing to pay every site you visit or encourage them to put up pay walls ??

I don't have to care about if they make money or not.

That's not my business. If they want to make money, they'll shift to other profit models that don't involve intrusive tracking and annoying advertisements.