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Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
81–90 of 262 posts
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 unint…
The argument you are making is a huge stretch.. Cloudflare is one of the bigger driving forces for DoH and they have nothing to do with ad revenue. Claiming that DoH is some sneaky way to get rid of things like pi-hole is just ridiculous.
DoH in itself is not sneaky, no more than ping is.
The push to centralise DNS resolution in the hands of a few questionable actors is and this is what is happening.
Cloudflare for example would absolutely love to know what you're up to all day; and because they can now correlate data from their "omnipresent" WAF with the data from 1.1.1.1 they could get some interesting information... And believe you me, they're not sending it to /dev/null.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#83[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]
This is the dark side of DNS-over-HTTPs: it prevents the network operator from changing what is received by browsers. Sometimes this is legitimate, as in Pi-hole.
Paul Vixie got very upset when he discovered that his chromecast bypasses local DNS settings to go directly to Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19170671
I wouldn't be surprised if soon Chrome defaults to DNS-over-HTTPs direct to base, except for the corporate intranet version. They just need to work out how to deal with wifi captive portals.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#84Anyone doing a pi-hole version for android? We all have an old phone that could be used instead of a rpi.
The issue with that is that WiFi is a lot higher latency than Ethernet (even rPi Ethernet which goes over USB) and DNS is one of those things that hurts a bit with higher latency.
You’re right, but there’s nothing stopping you from installing Pi-hole in Termux, I would think, aside from having to run a DNS resolver as a normal user and doing some messy DNS and network configuration. It’d probably be easier to set up by hand than to use Pi-hole.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#85File this away for the holidays, too: Pi-holes and NAS backup devices make good gifts.
I know it doesn’t sound very sentimental, but the first time I showed my relatives what the Internet looks like without ads, I think those were the strongest hugs I ever got from family members.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#86I've just tried it via the install script they provide and it was amazing. Took me through a simple checklist of stuff automating everything it could and giving me nice Curses interfaces for stuff where it needed me. Up and running within 5 mins!
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It already does. This is the purpose of putting a DNS-over-HTTPS resolver into the browser, so you can't bypass it with local resolvers.
Couldn't I sign my own pi-hole and add the certificate to my phone/computer?
No use if e.g. Chrome hardcodes Google's servers and ignores the system ones.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with the "old" way, where you visit a Mopar automotive related website and saw Mopar car part ads? Or when you visit a computer magazine and saw ads for computer parts? Or when you went to NYT and saw basic shit like paper towels and fall fashion? It became a problem when everyone and their sister started needing to know what kinds of kinks I'm into just to sell me dish detergent.
One big problem with entirely static ads is that websites are global but the ads running on them are for brands that are likely local (at least to a specific country.) If I visit the NYT website in e.g. Norway, should I still see ads for an American brand of paper towel that doesn’t exist here; or should I see ads for Norway paper towel brands? The flip-side of this is that I’ve noticed that YouTube shows me PSAs fro…
This not necessarily a problem. There's nothing to stop the website operator calling out to an ad provider, with the ip/location of the user, and getting an ad to embed.
The upside for the user is that location and whatever the one site is able to determine about the user is all that can be shared. If the user hasn't logged in with their real name - that probably isn't much.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with the "old" way, where you visit a Mopar automotive related website and saw Mopar car part ads? Or when you visit a computer magazine and saw ads for computer parts? Or when you went to NYT and saw basic shit like paper towels and fall fashion? It became a problem when everyone and their sister started needing to know what kinds of kinks I'm into just to sell me dish detergent.
One big problem with entirely static ads is that websites are global but the ads running on them are for brands that are likely local (at least to a specific country.) If I visit the NYT website in e.g. Norway, should I still see ads for an American brand of paper towel that doesn’t exist here; or should I see ads for Norway paper towel brands? The flip-side of this is that I’ve noticed that YouTube shows me PSAs fro…
Ads can still be geo-customised entirely from the server side, although that's a bit more work than just throwing an image in a directory.
Re: Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with the "old" way, where you visit a Mopar automotive related website and saw Mopar car part ads? Or when you visit a computer magazine and saw ads for computer parts? Or when you went to NYT and saw basic shit like paper towels and fall fashion? It became a problem when everyone and their sister started needing to know what kinds of kinks I'm into just to sell me dish detergent.
One big problem with entirely static ads is that websites are global but the ads running on them are for brands that are likely local (at least to a specific country.) If I visit the NYT website in e.g. Norway, should I still see ads for an American brand of paper towel that doesn’t exist here; or should I see ads for Norway paper towel brands? The flip-side of this is that I’ve noticed that YouTube shows me PSAs fro…
> If I visit the NYT website in e.g. Norway, should I still see ads for an American brand of paper towel that doesn’t exist here; or should I see ads for Norway paper towel brands?
That's still possible with static ads. The server can simply lookup your country from your IP address and serve the relevant ad, without tracking you at all.