If you or anyone else reading this has any experience with Linux, I’d recommend getting a Raspberry Pi and setting up Pi-hole on it. Costs about $50 total. Filters everything through a separate device on your network...kind of like a firewall for your firewall. I use safe browsing techniques and everything but that sucker still blocks almost 2,000 requests an hour. Almost 50% of your web traffic is nothing but ads and trackers.
Also edit for more info because just having a VPN doesn’t do much:
Custom VPN — blocks what you do on certain sites
Custom DNS — blocks what sites you go to from your ISP
Browser like Brave — blocks cookies
Add-on like NoScript — blocks scripts from running in the background
Custom filter like Pi-hole — blocks cross-site and background trackers, and all the rest of the junk
Then you have Tor and magnet links and the like, but that’s only if you really want to hop down the rabbit hole.
True. I just prefer a Pi cause I just mount it with the rest of my network stuff and forget about it since it’s so tiny. Less maintenance and less power. Plus I got a case that makes it look like a tiny NES for bonus retro points.
Thanks. I wish there were easy to follow step by step instructions on how to setup these sorts of things. The people at the other sites take to many things for granted assuming readers have the same technical knowledge they have...not good at easy to follow instructions.
There are many. Use your preferred search engine. If it’s your first time spinning up a Pi and using Linux it might seem overwhelming but there are tutorials that tell you how to do it step by step.
If you or anyone else reading this has any experience with Linux, I’d recommend getting a Raspberry Pi and setting up Pi-hole on it. Costs about $50 total. Filters everything through a separate device on your network...kind of like a firewall for your firewall. I use safe browsing techniques and everything but that sucker still blocks almost 2,000 requests an hour. Almost 50% of your web traffic is nothing but ads and trackers.
Also edit for more info because just having a VPN doesn’t do much:
Custom VPN — blocks what you do on certain sites Custom DNS — blocks what sites you go to from your ISP Browser like Brave — blocks cookies Add-on like NoScript — blocks scripts from running in the background Custom filter like Pi-hole — blocks cross-site and background trackers, and all the rest of the junk
Then you have Tor and magnet links and the like, but that’s only if you really want to hop down the rabbit hole.
I would not recommend Ghostery, they have been selling user data. uBlock Origin is MUCH better.
Have a container running pihole on my NAS. I am looking into running a kubernetes cluster made of raspberry pi's for fun as well.
You don't need a Pi device in itself since Pi-hole is FOSS and can be set up on any Linux distro, but yes.
True. I just prefer a Pi cause I just mount it with the rest of my network stuff and forget about it since it’s so tiny. Less maintenance and less power. Plus I got a case that makes it look like a tiny NES for bonus retro points.
Thanks. I wish there were easy to follow step by step instructions on how to setup these sorts of things. The people at the other sites take to many things for granted assuming readers have the same technical knowledge they have...not good at easy to follow instructions.
There are many. Use your preferred search engine. If it’s your first time spinning up a Pi and using Linux it might seem overwhelming but there are tutorials that tell you how to do it step by step.