So I’m a bit new to the homenetworking and homelab situation but I have a Unifi DM-SE as my router and I’m trying to establish the best way to block ads at home and away.

So I am currently primarily using either extensions or content blocking apps on my devices to block ads but I’ve been looking into DNS based solutions lately.

I’ve looked into setting up PiHole and it looks pretty simple to do and I have a dedicated small computer with Proxmox that I use for things like Homebridge, Scrypted and I think could set it up easily on there. But it looks like it only works at home. A lot of people say you can set up a VPN but I’d rather not have to turn on and off my VPN on my phone whenever I leave home.

I also looked into Next DNS which seems also pretty easy to setup, but I couldn’t tell if it’s better to set this up per device or network wide via my router.

There’s also the extensions and content blocking apps which would be device specific.

Which is the fastest, performance wise, and easiest to interact with daily?

  • Ok_Cartographer_6086@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    To be honest the advertisers have won this battle as far as I’m concerned but hear me out. It’s the “please turn off your ad blocker and support this site” pop-ups got more annoying than the ads. Using a VPN just means I don’t get personalized ads, just random ones.

    I run everything through a local install of Charles Proxy (though Proxyman or Sqid on Linux can do the same). This lets me see all of my traffic and see ssl traffic in plane text and I use this all day for debugging.

    Couple Advantages to using a Proxy instead of a blocker:

    • I can black list some urls that are annoying - including ads but web pages don’t see that as adblocking so no p
    • I can use the re-write tool if I’m getting sick of hearing about someone on the news all of the time.
    • I connect other devices on my wifi to it like my android (for above and debugging apps)
    • They can act as a cache with makes things faster though not a real issue these days with GPS internet.
    • There are blacklist collections peaple socialize

    www.charlesproxy.com

    • vasveritas@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Using a VPN just means I don’t get personalized ads, just random ones.

      You can ask Google for non-personalized ads too, its in the settings. They will track you either way.