Does using home wide adblocking cause websites / services / apps to break?

raksrules

raksrules

Elite
I have today installed Adguard Home on my Raspberry Pi just to try and for now, I have not done any sort of router level setup. I only setup the DNS on my iPhone and iPad. But I do wish to use it home wide. I am just concerned that doing so, does it cause issues with certain websites or apps on mobile or TV apps? If yes then what to do in such situation as the setup is at router level.

Also, I see the option to setup DNS gives me following options..

Code: 
[LIST]
[*]127.0.0.1
[*]::1
[*]192.168.29.50
[/LIST]


The third one above is the IP address of my Raspberry Pi and I have used the same in my phone. But on router level, say I use that and say my Pi is off, does it mean my internet is kind of broken as queries will be router through Ad Guard on Pi? Or if it is not available, it is bypassed and internet works without any blocking? Or is using 127.0.0.1 (localhost?) helps?

People using home wide ad blocking, seeking your help in answering above queries which will help me in making decision.

Also, how has your overall experience been better once you employed such network level ad blocking?
 
raksrules said:
I am just concerned that doing so, does it cause issues with certain websites or apps on mobile or TV apps? If yes then what to do in such situation as the setup is at router level.
Click to expand...
This is down to the individual app or service. They might use checks to prevent ad blocking.

Best is try and see and make a list of those that don't work. You will need custom coding to handle those.
 
I have no experience with Adguard but only with pi-hole. For that I can say that you can very easily find if something is an issue and can even troubleshoot within a few minutes.

With pi-hole you are in control of what you want to filter with help of adlists. The more you add the more are the chances of something legit being broken.
If something does break you can check query log and see what's being blocked at that device IP and unblock what you think is the culprit and retry, should be good to go.
You can also bypass/disable pi-hole entirely temporarily to troubleshoot.

Also yes, if your local DNS server, be it pi-hole or Adguard is down and it's the only DNS server on your router then devices will lose internet access.

For pi-hole I've shared my blacklist and whitelists here which I'm using since more than 8 months and I've had no issues.
 
I have been using Adguard Home for a year now, presently on a router (Asus) and in that case the router internally redirects all DNS requests to Adguard, so it requires no fiddling. It has blocklists and allowlists in addition to public adblock filters and custom URL filters, so there is effectively no difference to Pi Hole in functionality, though Pi Hole was a bit more unstable when I tried both in the past.

I used Adguard Home earlier on a Windows tablet using WSL, in which case, I only needed to specify the tablet's local IP in DNS settings. However, if that is the only option, then your home network will go down if the device is down. As a backup, you can add the Adguard Public DNS as a secondary entry, so if your Pi goes down, then the public DNS is still available with generic adblocking.

It is stated to add the DNS servers to the WAN settings of the router, but in that case the IP of individual devices is not visible on the dashboard, so I still specified it under LAN.

If you have an Asus router, then would 100% recommend to set up amtm on Merlin.
 
t3chg33k said:
I have been using Adguard Home for a year now, presently on a router (Asus) and in that case the router internally redirects all DNS requests to Adguard, so it requires no fiddling. It has blocklists and allowlists in addition to public adblock filters and custom URL filters, so there is effectively no difference to Pi Hole in functionality, though Pi Hole was a bit more unstable when I tried both in the past.

I used Adguard Home earlier on a Windows tablet using WSL, in which case, I only needed to specify the tablet's local IP in DNS settings. However, if that is the only option, then your home network will go down if the device is down. As a backup, you can add the Adguard Public DNS as a secondary entry, so if your Pi goes down, then the public DNS is still available with generic adblocking.

It is stated to add the DNS servers to the WAN settings of the router, but in that case the IP of individual devices is not visible on the dashboard, so I still specified it under LAN.

If you have an Asus router, then would 100% recommend to set up amtm on Merlin.
Click to expand...

I do have ASUS RT-AC68. It is actually locked down Tmobile cell spot router and it works fine and I am very happy with it (Got for $63 in 2016, still works great). I have read about tutorials on how to convert it to ASUS RT-68 or some custom firmware but honestly, I am too scared that I will brick it and hence I won't do it.
I have a place in the router settings to put the DNS server so I will check if I can put more than one DNS so that router can fall back to the 2nd DNS if first one (AD Guard) is not available.
 
raksrules said:
I have read about tutorials on how to convert it to ASUS RT-68 or some custom firmware but honestly, I am too scared that I will brick it and hence I won't do it.
Click to expand...
Bricked routers can be fixed with a special cable. They are more robust than phones.
 
Pihole blocks s.youtube.com (gravity) out of the box which in turn breaks YouTube app (vanced) history. So yes, some apps may partially or completely stop working. Most can be fixed, depending on your luck and google fu.
 
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