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Pi-hole v6

pi-hole.net

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Re: Pi-hole v6

#261

Post by close04 »

b3lvedere wrote: post #236
close04 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get a used mini-pc, install Linux on it As someone who tried that route I'd strongly recommend against it for anyone who isn't core HN audience or just loves tinkering. You're much better off with an Apple TV or an Nvidia Shield unless you really want the "beefy gaming media center". I walked the mini-PC/RPi road and they came up short every time even for me, let alone the rest of the family. Even when I put in pla…

I've had a MSI Trident functioning as a gaming/HTPC computer for years and the family loves it. They know how to browse the various streaming services and use Steam and Kodi.

> a MSI Trident

This is diverging quite a bit from "a smart TV replacement". Especially if Steam is a requirement.

The gaming PC you have there is probably exactly the combination you want. But for most others it's the compromise to avoid I mentioned above. It delivers the console and TV/media center experience but with the full PC power consumption, noise, boot times, maintenance effort, and inconvenient controls.

The cheapest Trident I can find on eBay costs more (by 2-5x) than an Xbox and an Apple TV together. And these 2 deliver their respective experiences with far fewer compromises.

> They know how to browse the various streaming services

Knowing how to use it is just the bare minimum requirement. With an Apple TV for example you can do the same with almost instant startup time, 0 noise, 0 maintenance, ~1-2W streaming, and a small remote control. And probably has less ads than the average Windows computer :). I found the "right tool for the job" more appropriate for my use case but that might not work for everyone or all the time.

Re: Pi-hole v6

#262

Post by tailspin2019 »

JamesBrooks wrote: post #152
jccalhoun wrote: post #35

I've been using Technitium for a couple years and been pretty happy with it https://technitium.com/dns/

I moved from pihole to Technitium a few months back because I wanted more DNS features than just adding A and CNAME records. For example the split horizon features to return different responses to DNS queries depending if I'm connected to my Tailscale network or not has been pretty slick. I documented that process here in case anyone is interested: https://blog.jamesbrooks.net/posts/technitium-dns-server-wit...

Excellent write-up. As a Tailscale + Pi-hole user you may have just inspired me to switch to Technitium. I’ve wanted that kind of split horizon functionality for years, for all sorts of things!

Re: Pi-hole v6

#263

Post by tailspin2019 »

Fnoord wrote: post #75
google234123 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good way to teach other members of your house to use VPNs to bypass your censorship regime

I also block Twitter ASN (yes, it is called Twitter ASN), and a whole bunch of IP ranges from not so democratic countries with very bad hostile actors. They don't have rule of law there, so I don't need these. With regards to X. Blocking it serves as a good reminder to use a proxy, or try and find the source elsewhere (Blue Sky, Mastodon). More often than not, these exist. Finally, if required I can use Tor Browser.…

Out of interest, those IP ranges that you’re blocking… is that at DNS level or are you doing some firewall-level blocking too?

And do you use any kind of reference for determining which ranges/countries are wise to block or has this just been something you’ve evolved over time?

Re: Pi-hole v6

#264

Post by InvertedRhodium »

zaudo wrote: post #237
master_crab wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if your gateway device is configurable enough you can ban or redirect port 53 requests (DNS) to whatever machine you would like to use to serve up resolution.

This is exactly what I do with my Unifi router, but still all I see in Pi-hole is the router making the DNS requests.

Are you NATing the redirection to the pi hole server? If so, disabling it should let pihole see unique clients.

Re: Pi-hole v6

#265

Post by tailspin2019 »

TZVdosOWs3kZHus wrote: post #224

Came here to give a big THANK YOU to everyone making this project possible. I am using Pi-Hole for about 8 years and can't imagine a world without it. Another big THANK YOU to all list maintainers out there. You're doing an incredibly useful service to the community.

Seconded! I’ve been using it for multiple years and it is extremely good, and reliable.

There are always some features that I wish it had, but ultimately it does a really good job.

It’s easy to take for granted the hard work that goes into creating and maintaining such awesome tools.

Re: Pi-hole v6

#266

Post by dmajor2 »

mistyvales wrote: post #198
saltymug76 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pihole catches a lot of the trackers and crap coming out of my android tv. On my pc I see it as an extra line of defense after ublock.

Hulu stopped working properly on my Shield after using Pi-Hole, so I guess it was working?

Yeah, even the paid (non-ad) hulu has trouble if you block its telemetry servers.

Re: Pi-hole v6

#267

Post by shbooms »

b3lvedere wrote: post #69
Jeremy1026 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really weird, because there's less stuff in it. It's also not subsidized by selling your user data.

Is this really true? The margin must be huge. I've seen 4K smart tv's for half the price of 4k monitors.

It's completely true.

Looking at Vizio's financial records[0], the numbers make it clear.

They seperate everything into 2 distinct businesses, Device and Platform+.

Device represents their hardware business of selling physical TVs and soundbars. Platform+ covers all of their other "software-related" business, mainly consisting of ad delivery and selling user data to third parties.

2019:

- Device Net Revenue = $1.7 billion

- Device Gross Profit = $125 million

- Platform+ Net Revenue = $63 million

- Platform+ Gross Profit = $40 million

2023:

- Device Net Revenue = $1.0 billion

- Device Gross Profit = -($8.6 million)

- Platform+ Net Revenue = $598 million

- Platform+ Gross Profit = $364 million

So over the course of just 4 years:

- hardware revenue is down 40% and is actually losing money (confirms they are indeed selling the TVs at a loss)

- Ad/user data revenue, however, is up almost ten-fold (+949%)

- total gross profits of the two combined are up over 54%

[0] https://investors.vizio.com/financials/quarterly-results/def...

Re: Pi-hole v6

#268

Post by skotobaza »

theshrike79 wrote: post #248
skotobaza wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why those specific countries? Do you just assume that all connections made from, say, Netherlands, are safe by default?

Basic statistics. The chance of someone from Netherlands being a state-level hacker is a lot smaller than someone from a Russian IP.

Logically, if Russians would want to infiltrate your organization, they won't do it from Russian IPs directly, but instead do it from cheap proxies, and those proxies are abundant in Netherlands or Germany.

Re: Pi-hole v6

#269

Post by simooooo »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #21

I set up pi-hole recently after hearing about it for years. I was kind of surprised at a lack of really basic features (imo): There isn't any kind of "dry run" or "phantom" mode, where requests are not actually blocked, but appear marked in the log UI as "would be blocked". This is super important because I want to see all the things my home network is doing that would be blocked before I actually hit the big red but…

Adguard home seems to be better in every way. Not sure if this is a feature though.

Re: Pi-hole v6

#270

Post by doron »

paxys wrote: post #95
MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also not possible (or not clear) how to have different behavior for different clients There's a menu item for that: Clients. You create a group, add a client to that group, and configure blocking for that group. To have what you want, you create a group that has just one client in it.

It's slightly more complicated. What you are suggesting works if (1) you are using Pi-hole as a DHCP server or (2) all your devices are individually configured to use the Pi-hole IP address for DNS resolution. What's more likely though is that you just point your router's DNS setting to Pi-hole, and in that case there is only one client on the Pi-hole dashboard - your router.

That's my only gripe with the current pi-hole; there is no easy way to configure DHCP options.
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