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?

  • pixelvengeur@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    In any case, if you want to filter your traffic when you’re away (be it with a network ad blocker or a proxy server) you will need to have a way to connect to said server.

    Local browser extensions only detect what has been shipped to the browser by the web server, which is why they work at home or on mobile data, all the processing is done locally on the device.

    A filtering DNS server, or a proxy server, will position itself between the web server you’re trying to join and your device, and take out the ads and tracking. But to be able to use that server, it needs to be on the same network as your device. It’s all good when you’re at home, but when you’re away, suddenly you two are separate. Hence the need for a VPN to connect your phone back to your home network.

    You could make it public facing, but that’s pretty much the worst thing you could do, security-wise. There are so many automated threats that actively try every waking minute of the day to get into an insecure home network to find of value, or to lay a time bomb that will allow them to do more, that you don’t want to mess with that. For real. Don’t mess with public-facing services.