Members who were on same state before they knew about this, can you help understand about this ?
And how this can be helpful ?
My setup
Internet → Main Router
Main Router (in drawing room) → via wifi → TV, mobile devices, laptops,
Main Router → via ethernet → Another router in my room → via ethernet → My PC
Router in my room → via wifi → TV, mobile devices.
Will there be any use of same in my scenario ?
Or atleast help me understand what is this technology.
Pi-hole is a network wide ad blocker that can run on a small, low-power computer like a Raspberry Pi. It acts as a DNS sinkhole, meaning it intercepts DNS requests and blocks known advertising and tracking domains before your devices ever reach them.
Instead of installing ad blockers on each device, Pi-hole filters ads for every device connected to your network (phones, laptops, smart TVs, etc). You can view statistics on how many requests are blocked and even whitelist or blacklist specific domains.
In your setup, Pi-hole would sit between your devices and the internet by acting as the DNS server for both routers. Ideally, you’d connect the Raspberry Pi (running Pi-hole) to your main router via Ethernet and set the router’s DNS to the Pi’s IP address. All devices connected to either router would then benefit from ad blocking and tracking protection.
Pihole is a service that you can run on a device (not just a raspberry pi - but its light enough to run on even such a low power device) that can do DNS adblocking.
Websites use third party ad providers to inject ads into their sites when an user requests them. These websites provide their adblocking tech through a separate domain.
Say I have a website called example1.com and I use terrificAds.com services to monetize my site. Then I will have some code to inject terrificAds.com’s ad serving library into my website bundle when an user who comes to visit my site.
Now if the user has a DNS adblocker - they won’t be able to resolve the ip-address of terrificAds.com, therefore those Ads wont be loaded.
Since this happens at the DNS side, you aren’t limited to just client side protections - meaning browsers where ublock origin isn’t supported can possibly have no ads.
It is not the best solution out there compared to using a client side blocker like ublock origin but its fair enough for android apps etc.
You will have to configure your devices to hit your pihole DNS to resolve them.
Some limitations to be aware of:
If the ad serving library loads the ads through the same domain name then those ads cannot be filtered unless you want to block the whole site.
If you use a custom DNS, if it goes down then so will your ability to access anything over the internet (unless you know their ip).
Generally not advisable, like self hosting your own password manager but YOLO.
So many people have given very good explanation here and I am no expert either.
But seeing the way you have layered your question, i feel my answer might help you.
So pi hole will run on a device ( can be anything ) on your network and will be connected just to router not to every device, this will have an ip address, which you can use on your main router as dns address, any device when trying to connect to internet will send request through the pi hole, effectively killing ads.
No physical connection required to each device.
Just wanted to ask a question here. Adguardhome vs Pi hole. What is your preference and opinion about them ?
for you, its better to simply get a dns subscription like nextdns, if you are not familiar with self hosting or basic coding
Thanks, whats difference between using paid and free dns services ?
Can we use paid services across all devices at home, when those are connected to any mobile network or ethernet based internet ?
for next dns, free service is limited to just 300k queries which can be run through pretty fast if you have family members using it.
You can use paid services across any number of devices, you define dns in your device settings, like on your mobile, laptop etc, so it doesnt matter which network you connect to, it’ll work all the same. its just a one liner config change for any device.
In comparison, pihole while free to host, will be constrained to your network, and its needs fair bit of tinkering to get it working, which for a layman can be a bit much in my experience.
I have got adguard dns for my parents and called it a day, its been working out beautifully for them with most of those porn/scam ads being gone and best of all, it doesnt rely on a network or anything, it just works. I will be shifting from adguard to nextdns or controlD though and I wont recommend adguard for you, their dont give out unlimited usage and have the same feature set as next dns while having same pricing.
Thanks will look for options in nextdns or controlid for family.
5 to 11 devices excluding TV, pc
Hopefully, if it can be configured in router (pppoe connection)
I’ve installed both several times over and over for past few weeks and I can safely say pihole is better merely because it’s faster (for me).
don’t bother with control d, for your usecase they offer nothing and they only have one server location in India. Just get next dns and you’ll be fine
I am thinking of getting PI zero 2w and setting up Pihole but found out that it apparently wont block youtube ads, stilling considering though