I’ve been aware of pi-hole for a while now, but never bothered with it because I do most web browsing on a laptop where browser extensions like uBlock origin are good enough. However, with multiple streaming services starting to insert adds into my paid subscriptions, I’m looking to upgrade to a network blocker that will also cover the apps on my smart TV.

I run most of my self hosted services on a proxmox server, so I’d like something that’ll run as an LXC container or a VM. I’m also vaguely aware that various competing applications have come out since pi-hole first gained popularity. Is pi-hole still the best thing going, or are there better options?

  • guajojoEnglish
    40·
    9 months ago

    Pihole user for more than 5 years,.can confirm that it is indeed better, made the switch few months ago

    • DreadPotatoEnglish
      70·
      9 months ago

      What makes adguard home better than pihole? Genuinely curious, I’m running pihole now and have been for a couple of years without issues.

    • Maximilious
      40·
      9 months ago

      What makes it better other than the UI? I’m weary of using it because it is developed by Russian developers.

      • Gooey0210English
        30·
        9 months ago

        Encryption, UI, probably a little bit more serious development

        But encryption is a big thing, DoT, DoH, Quic. And soon they will have ECH

        • DefederateLemmyMlEnglish
          30·
          9 months ago

          Just wanted to chime in and say that with a pihole you can also have encryption if you point to a local resolver like cloudflared or unbound.

          My pihole forwards everything to a cloudflared service running on 127.0.0.1:5353 to encrypt all my outgoing DNS queries, it was really easy to setup: https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/cloudflared/

          • danEnglish
            10·
            9 months ago9 months ago

            That’s a bunch of extra manual work though - both the initial setup, plus keeping the extra software packages up-to-date. With AdGuard Home, it’s already configured to use DoH by default.

          • Gooey0210English
            10·
            9 months ago

            Hold on, this is not the same encryption

            The encryption i was talking about is the encryption of your dns server

            The article you sent is talking about upstream dns server encryption

            • DefederateLemmyMlEnglish
              10·
              9 months ago

              The encryption i was talking about is the encryption of your dns server

              You mean encryption between the client and your DNS server, on your local network?

              • Gooey0210English
                10·
                9 months ago

                You can do it on your local network, but this won’t make much sense

                I mean encryption between your phone or laptop outside of your house, and your dns server at your house

        • bdonvrEnglish
          10·
          9 months ago

          That’s cool for certain applications but on my home network should I really be super concerned about DNS encryption?

          • Darkassassin07English
            40·
            9 months ago

            Not within the network, but translating regular dns to DoH before heading out to WAN keeps your browsing a little bit more private from your isp. Marginal, but it is a difference.

            • danEnglish
              10·
              9 months ago

              It’s not just a little bit more private… It’s a lot more private. Some ISPs have been known to build advertising profiles using DNS data. It’s trivial for them to see all DNS lookups and even modify the responses, since it’s both unencrypted and unauthenticated by default.

          • Gooey0210English
            20·
            9 months ago

            Probably not, but anyway it’s pretty cool to have an option to do this kind of stuff

            You can set up this dns on your phone, laptop, without a need of vpn (although vpns are cool, especially tailscale)

            But, are you always connected to the vpn? Or even to connect to the vpn itself you probably need dns, why would not use your own

    • Encrypt-KeeperEnglish
      10·
      9 months ago

      As an AdGuard home user for more than a few years, I switched back to Pihole because it wasn’t really any better. It was also easier to pair pihole with Unbound.