Hey folks, I just realized my pihole server, running on a Ras Pi 3 needs to be rebuilt from scratch. I've seen many mentions of AdGuard DNS here though. What's your thinking on which is better now?
We're a small family, looking for a basic ad blocking, set it and forget it, solution.
EDIT: I'd prefer the software be open source.
i switched from pihole to adguard because adguard is bsd compatible and runs on my opnsense router. for linux, the main benefit of adguard is that it is a self-contained app-image. pihole is a bit of a mess of packages that it installs (if installing on pc rather than a pi) , rather than being part of a distribution's native ports. upgrading adguard is also trivial.
I've not used anything other than pihole (and browser adblocks), so I can't speak on them. But pihole seems to do well for me. Granted I do have a bigger Blocklist than what ships. ~1.6 million domains. Some custom to my environment. Also using Wireguard so the blocking happens on smartphones while not at home.
I've got Wireguard set up too, for when I'm out of the house. Works really well.
PiHole is a pain in the ass to install in x86 Arch Linux, so I installed Technitium on my old laptop to be my home DNS server.
I have a laptop at my home that I use as a VPN exit node from Tailscail, and I installed Technitium there, to works also as a ad blocker. Really sweet to my needs.
It works pretty well
Installing pihole on raspbian 'just works' but OK.
Does it include filter lists and do those get auto-updated like pihole? What about whitelists and blacklists?
Yes, it does.
Actually with Technitium you can add a list from the internet, so it's always up-to-date with the deny list you want... And yes, it does have whitelist and blacklist. Is a pretty complete DNS server
+1 for the Technitium DNS server. I run it in Docker on a pi4 because I need a proper local dns server first that does DoH and ad and tracker blocking second. It does the latter just as well as pihole and adguard with support for many more list formats but pihole and adguard do dns just on a really basic level.
My setup sounds very similar to terminhell's. I have a server where the host is running Proxmox and I have a dedicated little Debian VM in it to run PiHole. It has been very reliable and stable in the four years since I've set this up.
To get ad-blocking on the go I set up Wireguard for myself and my gf so that we are always on my VPN when we are off my local WiFi. This has been functionally set and forget.
I haven't used AdGuard so I cannot comment on it, but I have not been found wanting in the slightest with PiHole.
I have 225k domains blocked with the combination of filter lists I use. I just use a few of the good ones. You can find good lists here. https://firebog.net/
I ran Pihole for many years, but a few months ago moved my home to Adguard. Both as docker.
My main issue with Pihole was that the database get going readonly which prevented my from whitelisting domains. It got progressivly more irritating when a 10 second operation would take a quarter of an hour and this randomly happened over at least two of those years with seemingly increasing frequency. A secondary reason was curiosity - what does Adguard do differently?
Piece of cake to set Adguard up in docker - even though I have two servers running with primary/secondary failover. In terms of features, it "just works". User experience is identical. The lists seem equally as effective. Adding a local dns entry was a little more complicated, but not difficult by any means.
Is pihole bad? No, it's great. I don't think many other people encounter my specific issues.
Is Adguard better? Not by any massive margin. Both do what they claim to do without fuss.
Is browsing the internet without either of them considerably more awful? Yes.
Is Adguard open source? Glancing at their web, it doesn't seem to be.
What about nextdns?
Pihole for years on a Pi3. But it kept dying on me, taking the Internet down with it. I believe this was a micro SD card issue not the Pi or the software. When rebuilding it I took the chance to try AGH and honestly like the interface much better. Seems more logically laid out, at least to me. So now I run one instance on Pi3, another on my unRAID server, with Adguard sync to keep them identical. I'm very happy with this setup.
