PiHole should be a must

D C said:
Ah, my bad. I didn’t see that.
Do mesh systems work only with their dhcp? Can they work if dhcp is from another device?
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Nah .Its not an issue.

I set the DNS server on my Orbi mesh setup to 192.168.1.200(pihole) and 1.1.1.1.

Works like a charm.

And I guess you have to avoid TP-Link/Tenda etc. if you want no Chinese stuff.

DLink is Taiwanese but I am not sure if they do the same crap.

I would rather have the NSA spy on me rather than the Chinese MSS.

An BTW not all Chinese stuff operate the same. I see my One Plus 7 Pro having the least no. of blocked queries compared to Samsung phones and TVs as well as Amazon Echo/Fire TV etc.
 
While I waited the dedicated hardware Rpi, I installed Pihole using the below simple guide on a VM. Works very well with blocking mosttracking websites and my custom list but be careful in going overboard with blocking especially payment systems which fail loading with related trackers are disabled (from experience).

One annoying bit is constant ping of pi.hole to content-autofill.googleapis.com

Running Pi-Hole Ad-Blocker in a VirtualBox VM

Running Pi-Hole Ad-Blocker in a VirtualBox VM
i12bretro.github.io i12bretro.github.io
 
kuduku said:
I cannot edit First post , can any MOD add the Hotstar blocking to OP as its an important block for Indian users:)
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j3rwin said:
For people trying to just block ads in hotstar you can blacklist "hesads.akamaized.net" I haven't seen a single ad in ages after doing this.
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I tried this with Adguard and blokada apps.. Doesn't work at all...Only displays loading screen animation and video doesn't start.
Is it working for anybody?
 
Hotstar doesn't work with my pihole, on my tv app. (Fine for phone and desktop)
Have added all possible hotstar stuff to whitelist. It just keeps on loading and if logged out, it doesn't load code screen.
Have to temporarily disable pihole for it to work on tv.
 
Ssreek said:
You mean to say blacklisting "hesads.akamaized.net" works on mobile and pc?
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Yes, I have that in my blacklist. Works fine for mobile and pc.
Not sure if this is affecting tv hotstar. I just temporarily disable for 30s and start hotstar in that time. Works fine after that.
 
D C said:
Hotstar doesn't work with my pihole, on my tv app. (Fine for phone and desktop)
Have added all possible hotstar stuff to whitelist. It just keeps on loading and if logged out, it doesn't load code screen.
Have to temporarily disable pihole for it to work on tv.
Click to expand...
Check if you have below URLs into your blacklist - if yes, just disable them.
api.hotstar.com
securemedia.hotstar.com

These URLs were added to prevent showing the ads on Hotstar
 
I'm new to this whole pi hole raspberry thing...Can someone tell me how much would it cost and which model to get? Also how much RAM does it need to work efficiently?
 
Ssreek said:
I'm new to this whole pi hole raspberry thing...Can someone tell me how much would it cost and which model to get? Also how much RAM does it need to work efficiently?
Click to expand...
Can work on a Pi Zero W. 1 core, 512MB of RAM.
I have made use of an old unused Android phone from 2014. Rooted it, installed LinuxDeploy on it, distribution of my choice and then Pi-hole inside the container. Using battery limiter to keep the battery in the range of 35-45% and plugged in all the time. Using wake locks to keep the wifi in high performance mode even when screen is off.
Less E-waste :)

1640269793344.png
 
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Ssreek said:
I'm new to this whole pi hole raspberry thing...Can someone tell me how much would it cost and which model to get? Also how much RAM does it need to work efficiently?
Click to expand...
You can get it started with Raspberry Pi Zero W or W2. You can even use your existing old PC that is lying dormant to use pihole - prefer DietPi installation it will make things easier for setup.
 
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