PiHole pointless for ad blocking in 2021?

[BoSon]

Finally got around to installing piHole on my Raspberry 4 to utilise it better now it's always on as a NAS for streaming stuff to my Roku mainly.

It appears to be working, the admin panel shows number of instances being blocked and how many devices using it, but basic pain in the ass adverts are not being blocked, from the likes of Daily Mail, local news website, or YouTube.

I've updated the blocklist from the default 90k entries to over 1 million, but maybe there's a list specific to the UK I need to add?

So what's the point if primary desire is to block ads and that is not being achieved?

I have to continue using Firefox with ublock origin and privacy badger to stop ads on websites, and Youtube apparently accesses ads from same source as the video content so apps like the one on my Roku are not able to distinguish, so still see ads without paying for the premium Youtube version. Maybe other sites are onto that solution these days to avoid pihole style blocking so need to use browser plug-ins that inspect the actual content.

I'll leave it on for now to see what stuff it does block, seems to be mostly telemetry from the Roku and smart TV so far.

 

[nirvana]

I tried it a while ago, seemed pretty cac to me lol

I think the key nowadays is keeping devices OFF the internet...

ie I stopped connecting my Smart TV directly to the internet (the cunts are spying on us all the time)

movie downloads from a PC using tranmission then onto a stick (i did use a hacked kodi box at one stage) but I find a usb3 stick fast and easy....

if you need to watch shite off amazon prime etc, cast it from your phone to a chromecast...

 

[Funn3r]

On 21/10/2021 at 12:36, BoSon said:

Finally got around to installing piHole on my Raspberry 4 to utilise it better now it's always on as a NAS for streaming stuff to my Roku mainly.

It appears to be working, the admin panel shows number of instances being blocked and how many devices using it, but basic pain in the ass adverts are not being blocked, from the likes of Daily Mail, local news website, or YouTube.

I've updated the blocklist from the default 90k entries to over 1 million, but maybe there's a list specific to the UK I need to add?

So what's the point if primary desire is to block ads and that is not being achieved?

I have to continue using Firefox with ublock origin and privacy badger to stop ads on websites, and Youtube apparently accesses ads from same source as the video content so apps like the one on my Roku are not able to distinguish, so still see ads without paying for the premium Youtube version. Maybe other sites are onto that solution these days to avoid pihole style blocking so need to use browser plug-ins that inspect the actual content.

I'll leave it on for now to see what stuff it does block, seems to be mostly telemetry from the Roku and smart TV so far.

 

Glad you told me about that. Have been berating myself for ages for not getting round to building pihole; don't feel so bad now.