[HN Gopher] Pi-hole v6
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Pi-hole v6
        
       Author : tkuraku
       Score  : 284 points
       Date   : 2025-02-18 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pi-hole.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pi-hole.net)
        
       | Mossy9 wrote:
       | Pi-hole is such a great tool. I've been running it for a few
       | years on a raspberry pi zero, and am constantly astonished by the
       | sheer amount of cruft it blocks for me.
       | 
       | Congratulations to the team for the release - happy to support
       | you via Patreon!
        
         | hk1337 wrote:
         | I have had many times click an article link on reddit where
         | everyone in the post comments complains about how the site is
         | riddled with ads that it makes it unreadable and all I see is
         | the article with a lot of whitespace.
        
           | martin_a wrote:
           | IT department does not like that, but I had them install
           | Firefox on the machines of my team, so we can install uBlock
           | Origin. People are _amazed_ how the internet does look
           | without ads.
        
       | unsnap_biceps wrote:
       | Does anyone know if pihole is ever going to add DoH or similar
       | support natively? I've had such troubles with cloudflared awhile
       | back that I gave up on DoH, but would love to encrypt those
       | queries.
        
         | zamubafoo wrote:
         | I've been using https://github.com/DNSCrypt/doh-server for
         | serving my DNS server via DOH for at least 2 years. Only had
         | two issues with it and both were due to lack of maintenance on
         | my part (ie. not updating the binary for one and then not re-
         | configuring it after I changed configurations for the upstream
         | DNS).
        
         | hotpocket777 wrote:
         | Assuming doh = dns over http
        
           | unsnap_biceps wrote:
           | Yes
        
         | chgs wrote:
         | I'm not sure why I'd ever want DoH, I block as much as I can at
         | my firewall and have a canary domain.
         | 
         | I want my devices to use my defined dns sever on my network,
         | not some ad company (and all tech companies eventually become
         | ad companies)
        
           | unsnap_biceps wrote:
           | I want pihole to talk encrypted to the upstream dns server. I
           | don't actually care if my devices talk encrypted to pihole.
           | 
           | I just don't want to leak dns requests to my isp. If there's
           | a way to do this without DoH or DoT, I'd happily learn more
           | about it.
        
             | bjoli wrote:
             | DoT has a standard port, meaning blocking (conforming)
             | requests simple. DoH uses 443.
             | 
             | Nothing says clients need to confirm to the port
             | requirements, but most companies will be lazy and assume
             | 853 will work.
        
           | unethical_ban wrote:
           | IIRC, there is not a native GUI method for Pihole to talk
           | encrypted to DoH providers. You have to set up a daemon
           | locally and configure via CLI, then set that as your
           | "upstream" DNS provider in Pihole admin.
           | 
           | Obviously the goal is to have your local clients talking to
           | Pihole, but the goal of having remote DNS queries encrypted
           | is to prevent ISP snooping.
           | 
           | Though if you _really_ want to prevent ISP snooping you have
           | all clients using VPN or configure your router to send all
           | outbound traffic to a VPN endpoint.
        
           | ndriscoll wrote:
           | Speaking of not wanting DoH to exist on the local network,
           | does anyone know if there is anything pre-existing that can
           | hook into firewall rules to default deny outgoing traffic and
           | only allow (until TTL expiry) in response to a DNS lookup?
           | That way things cannot bypass your DNS filtering with DoH or
           | hardcoded IPs.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | People use DoH/DoT so that their _upstream_ DNS lookups are
           | not transmitted in plaintext across the open internet. You
           | can do this and still run your own DNS server on your
           | network. The parent commenter is asking about Pihole with
           | DoH, which is exactly this.
        
         | newman314 wrote:
         | You can insert dnscrypt-proxy inline between PiHole and an
         | upstream server. So it'll work something like the following:
         | 
         | Client --DNS--> pinhole --DNS--> dnscrypt-proxy (localhost)
         | --DoH--> upstream
         | 
         | Not the prettiest but it works.
        
       | eamag wrote:
       | Want to highlight https://nextdns.io/ as a similar service, very
       | happy with it
        
         | poisonborz wrote:
         | Pihole being a self-hosted service and this being a third party
         | one, I would say the target group is somewhat different.
        
           | whalesalad wrote:
           | it's more than that - an app running on your internal network
           | is going to have way better latency than nextdns
        
             | zufallsheld wrote:
             | However you can't use it on the phone while not at home
             | (aside from using vpn/wireguard), but nextdns allows it.
             | 
             | As for the latency - is it really noticeable?
        
               | uncharted9 wrote:
               | my biggest gripe with NextDNS is not having an ability to
               | add custom blocklists. I'd gladly pay for it even if
               | there was a paid tier with this feature.
        
               | zufallsheld wrote:
               | It seems you can add domains to the deny list via their
               | api: https://nextdns.github.io/api/#profiles
               | 
               | So atleast there's that.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | dns latency is the single biggest reason people think
               | their internet is slow imho
        
               | 8fingerlouie wrote:
               | I'm currently seeing 12ms latency to my upstream NextDNS
               | server. On my home network I "proxy" it with a
               | forwarding/caching DNS server on my router, so for "the
               | usual suspects", latency is not an issue.
               | 
               | On the go, over 5G, those 12ms won't make much of a
               | difference.
               | 
               | Considering that people deploy PiHole on Raspberry Pi W
               | models, over wifi, you won't lose much running NextDNS,
               | but you gain dns blacklisting on all networks, as opposed
               | to just your home network (or via VPN)
        
             | 8fingerlouie wrote:
             | Define latency ?
             | 
             | This is my latency (ping.nextdns.io):
             | zepto-cph (IPv6)    12 ms  (anycast1, ultralow2)
             | zepto-cph           13 ms  (anycast1, ultralow2)
             | 
             | # anexia-cph 13 ms (anycast2, ultralow1)
             | anexia-cph (IPv6)   15 ms  (anycast2, ultralow1)
        
         | system7rocks wrote:
         | Same for me.
         | 
         | I had Adguard running on a Pi 2 I think and it died. Couldn't
         | access my network remotely. Learned my lesson and switched to
         | NextDNS on a bit more solid device.
        
           | leca wrote:
           | NextDNS is SASS, you can't self-host it.
        
             | system7rocks wrote:
             | Right! When my Pi died, my network didn't look for a backup
             | DNS, so everything became inaccessible. It was weird -
             | probably the classic SD card issue. With NextDNS, while I
             | do use DNS over TLS, if my Synology fails, it just kicks
             | back to regular NextDNS domain name servers.
        
         | zymhan wrote:
         | Pi-hole isn't a "service" though. It's just FOSS.
        
         | hk1337 wrote:
         | This actually seems rather nice. Not the same as PiHole but I
         | can see its upsides.
         | 
         | One upside I like about PiHole is that I can set it up to
         | distribute the DNS to all my devices. This seems like I have to
         | manually configure each device?
         | 
         | ATT doesn't let you set the IPv6 DNS, so I either have to
         | disable IPv6 on the network or setup PiHole to pass IPv6 and
         | the DNS I want to the device.
        
         | shmoogy wrote:
         | If only they had a stop blocking function.
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | I've been using AdGuard Home, which does pretty much the same
       | thing, but is slightly better polished, with things like support
       | for DoH and OSs other than Linux.
       | 
       | https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
        
         | lawn wrote:
         | I even run Adguard Home on my router that runs opnsense.
        
         | roger_ wrote:
         | I moved to AGH a while ago too.
         | 
         | Is there anything in Pi-Hole v6 that would make someone switch
         | back?
        
         | laweijfmvo wrote:
         | I went from PiHole -> AdGuard -> NextDNS. My patience for
         | tinkering and maintaining wasn't high enough to not just pay
         | someone else to do it :)
        
           | vosper wrote:
           | Yeah +1 for NextDNS. It's so easy to setup and manage, and
           | works really well.
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | The big benefit of running a DNS server locally is caching.
           | Using any external provider means you have to go out to the
           | internet for every single request.
           | 
           | With a local server, most requests are fulfilled from the
           | local cache.
        
             | Novosell wrote:
             | Hmmm, my router caches DNS queries.
        
           | mrmuagi wrote:
           | Same except skipping AdGuard.
           | 
           | Having the DNS live on a pi sounded like fun for me but it
           | gave me stress due to power outages. There is safety in
           | knowing you aren't adding a point of failure that only you
           | know how to solve.
           | 
           | I also had issues with adding backup DNS, since a backup DNS
           | would be queried if the pihole blocked the DNS query -- so I
           | would have to maintain two seperate blocklists, one local and
           | one offsite.
        
             | LeoPanthera wrote:
             | I run AdGuard Home on the same device as my router, so
             | anything that would take it down would also take down the
             | entire router anyway.
        
             | martin_a wrote:
             | I think my PiHole is up for 3+ years on a Raspberry Pi
             | dedicated to that task. Did not fail once since then, so
             | not sure if "DNS is going down" is really an issue. But
             | maybe I've got survivorship bias.
        
               | brummm wrote:
               | Living in a North American city with power wires being
               | above ground, I have had so many power outages in the
               | last five year, it was kind of a crazy thing to get used
               | to. My Pi would not deal well with power outages when
               | running through the SD card and so I stopped using it.
        
               | mrmuagi wrote:
               | I live in Vancouver BC, we have a power outage every 1-2
               | years due to high winds or fallen power poles. I noticed
               | some devices on my home network whilst connected to power
               | have power quality issues too, no doubt a UPS would help
               | here.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | I love AdGuard Home but the single binary container from a
         | Russian company makes me nervous. I may move to building it
         | myself. Is this criticism unfair?
        
           | skotobaza wrote:
           | > Is this criticism unfair?
           | 
           | Only if you don't trust only Russians and no one else.
        
             | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
             | I don't trust Iran, North Korea, or China either. It's not
             | hard, I'm an American and it's 2025. These are our
             | adversaries (I didn't choose them) who currently commit
             | cybercrimes against us. Hopefully in 2035 that won't be the
             | case and we can all sing kumbaya.
        
               | skotobaza wrote:
               | But if the binary came from US even with some malicious
               | code, it would be OK simply because the origin is
               | different?
        
               | ziddoap wrote:
               | > _with some malicious code_
               | 
               | Obviously not.
        
               | h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
               | I hope that you at some point will understand that these
               | are minorities among a huge population that you are
               | talking about.
               | 
               | It sounds like you think that every butcher, barber,
               | dancer, teacher, software dev etc in China is just
               | thinking of how they can hack the US.
               | 
               | Guess what: that's the image propagated by propaganda and
               | very far from the actual truth.
               | 
               | If you don't trust people, study their code and make a
               | formed opinion about it.
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | Given that the whole thing is open source and it is possible
           | to build it yourself, I'm willing to give them the benefit of
           | the doubt.
           | 
           | Not that it means all that much, but AdGuard is headquartered
           | in Cyprus, for what it's worth.
        
           | sunaookami wrote:
           | >Is this criticism unfair?
           | 
           | Yes because you judge people by the country they live in.
           | AdGuard has made their stance clear if something like this is
           | important to you: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/t
           | 15gr4/announcemen... & https://adguard.com/en/blog/official-
           | response-to-setapp.html
        
             | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
             | I actually didn't know this. Thanks!
        
           | seemaze wrote:
           | I built it myself for a while but as I mentioned elsewhere,
           | it's now being packaged in the Alpine Linux testing branch.
           | That makes a container image an 'apk add' away.. whether you
           | trust Alpine Linux more or less than the AdGuard Home teams
           | is up to you.
        
         | brynx97 wrote:
         | DoH is possible on pihole using cloudflared-- https://docs.pi-
         | hole.net/guides/dns/cloudflared/.
         | 
         | > The cloudflared binary will also work with other DoH
         | providers.
        
       | bangaladore wrote:
       | Ironically their website has been hugged to death.
        
         | piyuv wrote:
         | Why is it ironic? They're not providing load balancing or
         | anything similar
        
           | bangaladore wrote:
           | Sorry if the point wasn't clear.
           | 
           | The service/device dedicated to killing connections (blocking
           | dns, whatever) can't/won't serve my connection.
        
             | antonvs wrote:
             | You should let Alanis Morissette know.
        
         | NeckBeardPrince wrote:
         | I don't think you know what irony means.
        
           | bangaladore wrote:
           | Maybe you'd better define it as an "amusing twist".
        
           | triyambakam wrote:
           | At this point we should accept the vernacular use of the word
           | as correct.
        
       | zymhan wrote:
       | > The web interface has been completely overhauled with settings
       | split into Basic and Expert modes. This allows users to customize
       | their experience based on their comfort level and needs.
       | 
       | This sounds helpful for setting up a Pi-Hole for family or
       | friends that aren't DNS admins by day.
        
       | _fat_santa wrote:
       | Pi-hole is a killer application and I've loved it since I got it
       | setup. One other app I highly recommend to run on your Pi in
       | addition to Pi-hole is Nginx Proxy Manager[1].
       | 
       | [1]: https://nginxproxymanager.com/
        
       | kmfrk wrote:
       | Lots of great memories using Pi-hole and messing with RPi. I
       | eventually ended up putting my devices on Tailscale and managing
       | DNS through it, eventually using Mullvad VPN as the exit node.
       | 
       | Pretty good interface, and most people just have to connect using
       | the app. Having a virtual network between devices with dedicated
       | IPs is pretty nice too.
        
       | andy_xor_andrew wrote:
       | I set up pi-hole recently after hearing about it for years. I was
       | kind of surprised at a lack of really basic features (imo):
       | 
       | There isn't any kind of "dry run" or "phantom" mode, where
       | requests are not actually blocked, but appear marked in the log
       | UI as "would be blocked". This is super important because I want
       | to see all the things my home network is doing that _would be_
       | blocked before I actually hit the big red button. I want to fix
       | up the allow /denylist before going live.
       | 
       | It's also not possible (or not clear) how to have different
       | behavior for different clients. For my "smart tv" which I
       | begrudgingly have to allow on my network occasionally for
       | software updates, I want to treat it with the strictest possible
       | list. But for my phone, I don't want that same list. There's a
       | concept of "groups" so perhaps this is user error on my part, but
       | the UI does not make this clear.
        
         | jkingsman wrote:
         | I think log-don't-enforce and per-client block profiles are
         | probably basic to people who work with networking regularly,
         | but are probably pretty far out of reach for the average home
         | user who are probably needing to expand their networking
         | knowledge just to distribute custom DNS via DHCP.
         | 
         | So, I agree that those would be lovely features but are, I
         | think, a ways beyond what I would assume the p90 of pihole
         | users would need or be able to use.
        
         | bdcp wrote:
         | For the seconds question, it is indeed Groups. I have my SO's
         | phone bypass everything. It's the way she wants it.
         | 
         | Yea i agree it's not super UX friendly.
        
         | ge96 wrote:
         | I think I'll never buy a smart TV what an ultimate ahole move
         | to put ads in there. It's like the Kindles where you have to
         | read these ads before you can open your book (of course you can
         | pay a 1-time fee). Like buying a movie on YouTube and having to
         | watch ads in it or can't see full res unless you're on an
         | allowed device. If UBO actually stops working on Chrome I'll
         | either leave or use pihole.
         | 
         | My cheap android phone installs games by itself eg. candy crush
         | ugh. My own fault I get it buy a $2K phone instead of $160
        
           | b3lvedere wrote:
           | Most non-smart 4K screens are more expensive than 4k-smart tv
           | screens though. Really weird, because there's less stuff in
           | it. I just want a nice 50" 4k screen with hdmi and display
           | ports. I don't use all the other junk anyway, since i watch
           | tv via a computer and sounds goes to a surround set.
        
             | progbits wrote:
             | Is there an equivalent of DDWRT/OpenWRT but for TVs?
             | 
             | Most often those are some embedded linux board running some
             | Android fork, shouldn't there be some TV models on the
             | market that are a good hardware/price deal with firmware
             | that can be replaced?
             | 
             | Even something that just permanently shows HDMI input with
             | no popup overlays would be good, but AOSP + VLC/Jellyfin
             | would be even nicer.
        
               | RandomDistort wrote:
               | Isn't a TV that permanently shows HDMI input a big
               | monitor?
               | 
               | Weirdly they always seem to be more expensive than a TV
               | though.
        
               | b3lvedere wrote:
               | Well yes, but i guess either big monitors use different
               | panels or there's some shady business going on.
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | Inclusive or.
        
               | progbits wrote:
               | Yeah exactly, as also others point out in the thread, if
               | you want "TV-sized monitor" you will pay more than for a
               | TV, and probably get worse panel, lower brightness, etc.
               | Hence it would be useful to buy "smart" TV and turn it
               | into a monitor instead.
        
               | b3lvedere wrote:
               | Would be fun if some could hack those os'es indeed.
               | 
               | It could make a nice CrowdSupply project, except for the
               | cheap distribution of the huge packages. Sounds not that
               | hard though: Just get some nice 50" 4k smart tv's and
               | remove all the junk. Cool features like DP daisy chain or
               | something and one could have a nice project. But i'm
               | guessing there is (too) much money to be made in user
               | info and ads. :(
        
               | lotharcable2 wrote:
               | > Is there an equivalent of DDWRT/OpenWRT but for TVs?
               | 
               | Get a used mini-pc, install Linux on it, and don't allow
               | the TV to connect to any networks. This is a 50-75 dollar
               | solution. Good if you are on a budget and are not
               | interested in any wiz-bang features like HDR.
               | 
               | There are a few TV-dedicated Linux systems out there,
               | like libreElEC.
               | 
               | Or get a more powerful system with a AMD GPU and install
               | Bazzite on it. That way you get something like "SteamOS
               | for your TV". Pairs nicely with controllers like 8BitDo.
               | 
               | It would be nice to have TVs as open as PCs, but the
               | manufacturers and media companies are ran by dirtbags and
               | would rather have victims then customers.
        
             | Jeremy1026 wrote:
             | > Really weird, because there's less stuff in it.
             | 
             | It's also not subsidized by selling your user data.
        
               | b3lvedere wrote:
               | Is this really true? The margin must be huge. I've seen
               | 4K smart tv's for half the price of 4k monitors.
        
               | emaro wrote:
               | TVs usually have lower requirements regarding frame rate
               | and latency compared to computer monitors. That's
               | probably also a factor.
        
               | FirmwareBurner wrote:
               | Probably more to do with the economies of scale. More TVs
               | are sold than PC monitors so therefore cheaper.
        
               | alabastervlog wrote:
               | I've had a little insight into this world. To make the
               | BOM costs work at the retail prices they charge for
               | things like common set-top streaming boxes (e.g. Roku)
               | and, now, TVs themselves since they incorporate the same
               | stuff, they _have to_ be selling data. Otherwise they 're
               | selling at a loss, once you factor in middleman margins
               | and such.
               | 
               | You can try to compete by charging a reasonable amount
               | for your hardware and software, but you'll be competing
               | against economy of scale and wrestling for shelf-space
               | with products that are (don't forget retail percentage
               | mark-up) at least 30% cheaper than yours, which means
               | your units don't move, which means you don't get (or
               | keep) shelf space, and hello death spiral. Also if you
               | somehow manage to make it despite that, as soon as an MBA
               | gets in charge you'll just switch to selling data, too.
        
               | ranbato wrote:
               | In 2019 the Vizio CEO went on the record saying there was
               | no money in dumb TVs. They sell near cost and make it all
               | up in ads and metrics.
               | 
               | https://boingboing.net/2019/01/11/telescreens-r-us.html
        
             | baltimore wrote:
             | > Really weird
             | 
             | No, not weird. The extra stuff is there to show you ads
             | and/or track your behavior, which generates a stream of
             | revenue for the TV maker. W/o the extra stuff, the only
             | revenue comes from the one-time purchase.
        
           | lotharcable2 wrote:
           | I have a 'smart tv'. I don't allow it to connect to any
           | network.
           | 
           | The only really annoying thing about it is that noises from
           | tv shows or the house sometimes triggers the voice
           | recognition, which fails, and then you have to click through
           | the error message.
        
         | josephg wrote:
         | > For my "smart tv" which I begrudgingly have to allow on my
         | network occasionally for software updates
         | 
         | Why install software updates if you don't use the "smart"
         | features? Our smart tv has been banned from the internet for
         | years.
        
           | timoteostewart wrote:
           | I imagine software updates might bring improved support for
           | various media codecs, or UI enhancements, or better Bluetooth
           | compatibility, etc.
        
             | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
             | Or more likely: reduced privacy settings, increased
             | analytics, and in-menu advertisements.
        
           | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
           | My tv after a recent update has begun randomly crashing with
           | audio looping for a few seconds before rebooting. When an
           | update comes through for that you can he damned sure I'll be
           | disabling all future updates.
        
         | nkrisc wrote:
         | The way I handled this issue for my family and devices is just
         | by having two SSIDs - one with pihole blocking and one without.
         | If it's interfering with something me or my wife can just
         | switch to the unblocked network temporarily.
        
         | MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
         | > It's also not possible (or not clear) how to have different
         | behavior for different clients
         | 
         | There's a menu item for that: Clients. You create a group, add
         | a client to that group, and configure blocking for that group.
         | To have what you want, you create a group that has just one
         | client in it.
        
           | paxys wrote:
           | It's slightly more complicated. What you are suggesting works
           | if (1) you are using Pi-hole as a DHCP server or (2) all your
           | devices are individually configured to use the Pi-hole IP
           | address for DNS resolution. What's more likely though is that
           | you just point your router's DNS setting to Pi-hole, and in
           | that case there is only one client on the Pi-hole dashboard -
           | your router.
        
             | jimsmart wrote:
             | > What's more likely though is that you just point your
             | router's DNS setting to Pi-hole, and in that case there is
             | only one client on the Pi-hole dashboard - your router.
             | 
             | That depends entirely on what capabilities your router has.
             | 
             | Many routers have a setting for the DNS info they give to
             | clients via DHCP, which would mean every client is indeed
             | using PiHole directly for DNS resolution.
             | 
             | Other less capable routers, only have a setting for which
             | upstream DNS server(s) the router should use, which of
             | course isn't going to allow you to do anything with
             | PiHole's group stuff.
             | 
             | But an easy solution is simply to disable the DHCP server
             | on the router, and simply use what is built-in to PiHole.
             | It uses dnsmasq behind the scenes, and as DHCP servers go,
             | it's pretty capable and configurable. This is how I use
             | PiHole on my own network, and have done for years now (with
             | some customised dnsmasq config, because I have strong
             | preferences about my network setup and services).
             | 
             | Most routers do nothing particularly special regarding DHCP
             | anyhow, so no big deal to just turn it off, and use
             | PiHole's stuff.
             | 
             | FWIW, and tangent to these specific points, my upgrade to
             | the new PiHole 6 earlier today was pretty smooth -- with
             | the exception of it defaulting to having its dashboard on
             | port 8080 instead of my previous 80. Plus I had to tweak a
             | couple of settings to ensure it loads my custom dnsmasq
             | config. But no deal breakers at all.
        
             | MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
             | It works for me and I don't use Pi-Hole as a DHCP server or
             | have any of my devices individually configured. I have my
             | router acting as a DHCP server and have it tell clients to
             | use my Pi-hole for DNS. Some routers' default firmwares
             | don't let you do this, but most OpenWRT and Tomato and the
             | like should.
        
             | bolster8505 wrote:
             | Using clients and groups works fine for me. I'm able to
             | block youtube on my kids' devices, but allow it on others.
             | I have pihole running in a container without being my dhcp
             | server.
        
         | everdrive wrote:
         | You can definitely set client groups, either based on CIDR, MAC
         | (if on the same network segment) or individual IP. From there,
         | you can assign different domains and list to the specific
         | groups.
        
         | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
         | Is a DNS blackhole the right way to restrict your TV from doing
         | bad things? The software running on the device might not even
         | use DNS lookups to connect to hosts as it pleases. Your router
         | is probably the better place to add guardrails.
        
           | progbits wrote:
           | I recommend putting all these things on their own VLANs with
           | strict routing rules.
           | 
           | For example my STB is on a VLAN that has WAN access
           | (otherwise it won't do anything), but that makes it
           | untrustworthy so it is completely isolated from rest of LAN.
           | 
           | On the other hand some "smart"/IoT devices are on a VLAN that
           | has no WAN access so that they can't phone home, become a
           | botnet, or download firmware updates that remove
           | functionality in favor of subscription services. Only a VM
           | running homeassistant can talk to them.
           | 
           | This will work until amazon sidewalk / built-in LTE modems
           | become too frequent, at that point I'll have to start ripping
           | out the radio modules from things I buy.
        
             | JB_Dev wrote:
             | Call me pessimistic, but as the sidewalk pattern becomes
             | more common for IoT, I wouldn't be surprised if a
             | "malfunctioning radio" just results in the device not
             | working properly.
        
           | xrisk wrote:
           | It's a start for sure, a TV that's really out to track you
           | might well be able to circumvent these blocks, but most TVs
           | (and indeed most tracking technologies on the web) to my
           | understanding are not so sophisticated. For the average
           | person who wants to enjoy some of the smart features of their
           | TV this is a good compromise.
           | 
           | And I'm not sure what you mean by the router being the better
           | place to add guardrails. What sort of guardrails can you
           | possibly add outside of blocking internet access outright to
           | the TV? It would be near impossible to distinguish between
           | legitimate traffic and ad/tracking traffic without resorting
           | to something like SNI sniffing which again can be bypassed.
        
             | nothrabannosir wrote:
             | Smart TV opt-out telemetry is malicious.
        
               | xrisk wrote:
               | Edited to clarify what I mean.
        
           | temp0826 wrote:
           | Smart/iot devices using DoH (or other encrypted DNS) is a
           | headache that would need to be solved at the router
           | (mitming/redirecting to your preferred provider? or straight
           | up blocking) with a big blocklist. Unfortunate what a double-
           | edged sword DoH is becoming.
        
       | kayson wrote:
       | I wish pfblocker-ng was as easy to use and polished as pihole. It
       | seems silly to run an extra DNS resolver if I'm already running
       | one on pfsense, but the interface makes it tempting
        
       | jedisct1 wrote:
       | I just use dnscrypt-proxy directly.
        
       | seanp2k2 wrote:
       | I've been happy with AdGuard Home on two Pi4s and a little home
       | server for years now: https://adguard.com/en/adguard-
       | home/overview.html
       | 
       | I have some scripts to sync config between them and a Jenkins job
       | if I want to pause blocking on them for a bit.
       | 
       | It looks like https://github.com/mattwebbio/orbital-sync and
       | https://github.com/lovelaze/nebula-sync can sync configs with Pi-
       | hole 6 now, but it's quite a bit of code for what looks like just
       | a few HTTP requests to get the config from one using the
       | teleporter feature, then restore it on the others using the same.
        
         | seemaze wrote:
         | A Raspberry Pi with Alpine Linux makes a sweet little DNS
         | server. AdGuard Home is even packaged in the testing branch[0]
         | these days
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=adguardhome&arch=
        
       | plg wrote:
       | love pi-hole
       | 
       | we block all meta and X properties from our home network, also
       | ads
       | 
       | and it's self hosted on our own metal
       | 
       | it's a wonderful life
        
         | andrewinardeer wrote:
         | > we block all meta and X properties from our home network,
         | also ads
         | 
         | There's a difference between meta, X and ads?
        
         | google234123 wrote:
         | Good way to teach other members of your house to use VPNs to
         | bypass your censorship regime
        
           | sciencerobot wrote:
           | meta and X are both heavily censored so I guess it's censors
           | all the way down?
        
             | corey_moncure wrote:
             | I'd like to hear more about this. Can you provide an
             | example of censorship on X?
        
               | xrisk wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions
        
               | corey_moncure wrote:
               | Let me put it another way; can you provide some examples
               | of ideas, topics or opinions that I are likely to be
               | censored if I posted them on X?
        
               | ranbato wrote:
               | How about blocking links to Signal, allegedly since US
               | Government workers are using it to coordinate responses
               | to DOGE requests?
               | 
               | https://www.forbes.com/sites/dimitarmixmihov/2025/02/17/x
               | -is...
        
               | butshouldyou wrote:
               | Lots of screenshots circulating of posting the word
               | "Cisgender" being flagged by Twitter. Not sure if they
               | just flag or remove it though, as I don't use Twitter any
               | more.
        
           | Fnoord wrote:
           | I also block Twitter ASN (yes, it is called Twitter ASN), and
           | a whole bunch of IP ranges from not so democratic countries
           | with very bad hostile actors. They don't have rule of law
           | there, so I don't need these.
           | 
           | With regards to X. Blocking it serves as a good reminder to
           | use a proxy, or try and find the source elsewhere (Blue Sky,
           | Mastodon). More often than not, these exist.
           | 
           | Finally, if required I can use Tor Browser. No cookies, no
           | profiling, no ads.
        
       | jccalhoun wrote:
       | I've been using Technitium for a couple years and been pretty
       | happy with it https://technitium.com/dns/
        
         | bjoli wrote:
         | So have I. I found it more approachable once I started having
         | more advanced configurations.
        
         | malmeloo wrote:
         | Technitium is great. Rock solid, plenty performant and it has
         | more features than you'll ever need. Pretty wild when you
         | consider it's being maintained by a single dev.
        
         | JamesBrooks wrote:
         | I moved from pihole to Technitium a few months back because I
         | wanted more DNS features than just adding A and CNAME records.
         | 
         | For example the split horizon features to return different
         | responses to DNS queries depending if I'm connected to my
         | Tailscale network or not has been pretty slick.
         | 
         | I documented that process here in case anyone is interested:
         | https://blog.jamesbrooks.net/posts/technitium-dns-server-wit...
        
       | ConanRus wrote:
       | We've integrated a new REST API and embedded web server directly
       | into the pihole-FTL binary. This eliminates the need for lighttpd
       | and PHP"
       | 
       | oh noes!
        
       | ncrmro wrote:
       | Nice.
       | 
       | I wish pihole or adguard would add support for change DNS records
       | based on the query subnet. I believe this is called DNS views.
       | 
       | That way my local devices and wireguard devices can get the
       | correct IP for internal services.
        
         | VTimofeenko wrote:
         | In unbound those are indeed views[1]. I moved from pihole to
         | unbound+nsd a couple of years ago for precisely this use case.
         | Block filters courtesy of[2].
         | 
         | [1]:
         | https://unbound.docs.nlnetlabs.nl/en/latest/topics/filtering...
         | 
         | [2]: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
        
         | Marsymars wrote:
         | I managed this by getting a gTLD (digit-only .xyz is cheapest)
         | for internal-only services and then running a Caddy instance to
         | reverse-proxy to my internal services. I don't port forward or
         | open ports to that Caddy instance, so it's not available
         | externally.
        
       | unethical_ban wrote:
       | Slightly off topic, but it annoys me that protonvpn does not
       | allow split tunnel of DNS to an internal host. It calls this DNS
       | leak protection, which is a good default. But I want to run my
       | own DNS server and I know what I'm doing, and the Proton GUI
       | won't let me.
        
       | miningape wrote:
       | Ha! I bought a Pi5 as a Christmas present for myself, I've only
       | done some basic setup and gotten sidetracked by other projects -
       | but setting up pi-hole is near the top of my list of sh*t to get
       | done
        
       | RandomDistort wrote:
       | Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've got a semi-
       | obscure DNS question.
       | 
       | I'd like to use Cloudflare's Zero Trust DNS filtering with DoH by
       | running a DNS proxy on my network.
       | 
       | I can get this to work great with github.com/adguardTeam/dnsproxy
       | (running on a Pi 4B) but what I would really like is to have
       | different devices (based on their IP on the network) get their
       | queries forwarded onto a different DoH upstream.
       | 
       | Is this possible in a simple way?
        
         | woleium wrote:
         | Perplexity thinks so:
         | 
         | https://www.perplexity.ai/search/i-d-like-to-use-cloudflare-...
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | Please don't use AI to write your comments. If I wanted to
           | know what AI thinks I could ask it myself. I read the
           | comments to get feedback from humans.
           | 
           | Edit: OP edited their comment, was previously a very long AI-
           | generated response.
        
             | woleium wrote:
             | Noted, won't do it again :)
        
           | Etheryte wrote:
           | Please don't spam HN with LLM generated slop. The value of HN
           | is the human discussion, everyone here is perfectly capable
           | of asking an LLM of their choice.
        
       | wkyleg wrote:
       | In my experience Pi hole is a very worthwhile investment. People
       | who used my internet when I had one would remark how much faster
       | it was. Everything in general seems faster, even things that you
       | wouldn't think of. I typically use Brave for browsing which has
       | good ad blocking capabilities, but this adds a whole additional
       | layer.
       | 
       | The only reason I don't use one now is that I travel a lot more
       | so it's irrelevant, and I have to work enough on tools with
       | Google/Vercel/other analytics that it is just very inconvenient.
       | 
       | Regarding smart TVs, I have found that it's better to just use an
       | Apple TV or Kodi box and never connect to them internet though.
       | Having said, I gave my TV away because I never used it, so this
       | might not be as up to date. A Pi hole will block ads on smart TVs
       | though.
        
         | _chris_ wrote:
         | Wouldn't a smart tv do something ... smarter than just using
         | the default dns given to it by the network?
         | 
         | I'm not up to speed on this stuff but I thought pihole only
         | blocked the simplest stuff from devices that play nice?
        
           | dark-star wrote:
           | > Wouldn't a smart tv do something ... smarter than just
           | using the default dns given to it by the network?
           | 
           | It could certainly try... but usually you would block that in
           | your firewall. Fixed DNS servers or fixed server IP addresses
           | are tricky because if you ever need to change them, you
           | can't, because you'd need to update the hardware (which you
           | can't since it sits behind a firewall).
           | 
           | It could try to use things like Google's DNS server, but that
           | is easily blocked in your router.
           | 
           | Not a lot that could be done except trusting your (internal)
           | DNS server...
        
           | netsharc wrote:
           | Why should the programmers of the TV's OS look for edge
           | cases, and do you think the TV makers would give them budget
           | for that? For 90+% of users the standard config of trusting
           | the DHCP server will work fine, and the Pi-Hole users will
           | probably not give them money anyway, and will be dedicated to
           | defeat their workarounds...
        
           | natebc wrote:
           | I've been worried about companies that make software like
           | this (applications with embedded telemetry or advertisements)
           | starting to do their on DoH style lookups.
           | 
           | I don't KNOW of any doing it but I can't imagine it'd be too
           | hard for them to do.
        
       | mrbluecoat wrote:
       | 5+ year development cycle. Impressive! https://pi-
       | hole.net/blog/2023/10/09/pi-hole-v6-beta-testing/
       | 
       | Any details on what HTTPS support provides, other than a TLS
       | connection to the admin dashboard?
        
         | thomassmith65 wrote:
         | That works for me. It means I don't need to relearn everything
         | every year, and the major versions probably won't be riddled
         | with bugs.
        
       | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
       | I love PiHole.
       | 
       | I run my PiHole on a small cloud VM that I use for several
       | projects, but put it behind a VPN that's configured to only
       | forward DNS lookups, then VPN into it from my phone. So many
       | advantages behind this setup.
       | 
       | - Since only DNS lookups are tunneled, I don't have to worry
       | about tunneling ALL my traffic and paying egress fees
       | 
       | - Blocks ads in ALL apps, not just my browser
       | 
       | - If it's acting up, I can just disconnect from the VPN to
       | disable PiHoling
       | 
       | - Don't have to expose my home IP address and open a port for the
       | world to start banging on
        
         | TheArcane wrote:
         | > Don't have to expose my home IP address and open a port for
         | the world to start banging on
         | 
         | Is that really an issue if all you're exposing is the VPN port?
         | Wireguard for instance has industrial-grade encryption. Even
         | open port 51820 should be fine
        
           | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
           | I mean, probably not. But I like the idea of keeping
           | everything closed anyways.
        
           | 8fingerlouie wrote:
           | With wireguard in particular, you're probably not running
           | much risk, as wireguard runs over UDP, and as long as you're
           | not connecting with a correct (recognized) key, it will not
           | even generate a response, so a potential attacker has no way
           | of knowing for sure that wireguard is running on a given
           | port.
        
       | lanthade wrote:
       | The big feature miss for me in this announcement is baked in
       | support for configuration sync between servers. Redundant DNS is
       | common and it would be nice if pi-hole supported this oob. Making
       | it even better would be an ability to see stats across all synced
       | servers from one location.
        
         | reboot81 wrote:
         | I'm using https://github.com/ShiromMakkad/docker-pihole-sync To
         | sync my two piholes. But I haven't figured out how to keep my
         | third pihole (ip-failover) to get in the loop...
        
       | TriangleEdge wrote:
       | I have a script update my hosts file to route domains to 0.0.0.0
       | and ::0 . I get the domains from
       | https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.
        
       | nirav72 wrote:
       | Still no wildcard domain support for local DNS.
        
       | Netcob wrote:
       | Finally a REST API!
       | 
       | I've been waiting for this - I wanted to play around with
       | blocking distractions on various rules, but controlling pi-hole
       | remotely was a huge pain and often didn't work until now.
        
         | nirav72 wrote:
         | Have they added more to the existing API? They already had an
         | http API to enable/disable blocking.
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-18 23:00 UTC)