Computers & Electronics

AdGuard Home -- Opensource DNS Adblocker like PiHole

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  • Apr 15th, 2023 6:39 am
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Jan 1, 2015
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fudge_u wrote: Yup... RFD uses referral links so they can't make money off clicks. You'll need to whitelist them as you come across them.
Yes, that was definitely it. I was too lazy to manually whitelist via the logs so I just swapped to an Adguard DNS on my router, but the new Blocklist is a better all in one solution
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FrugalConsumer wrote: Yes, that was definitely it. I was too lazy to manually whitelist via the logs so I just swapped to an Adguard DNS on my router, but the new Blocklist is a better all in one solution
Fair enough... their server solution is great and very simple to use compared to Pi-Hole. I've been running it off of Oracle's free cloud service for the past few days and it works very well. I also whitelisted three networks and blocked everything else, so hopefully the instance doesn't get attacked.

In addition to ad blocking, I also needed region unblocking so I'm using Getflix's DNS service with the AdGuard Home server, so it's become an all-in-one solution for me. Disable the security/virus protection on the routers to improve their performance/throughput and rely on AdGuard Home for ad blocking and region unblocking. I also added Getflix's 5-6 fastest DNS servers to AdGuard Home, so it'll load balance between them and always select the fastest DNS server for me.

Man, I really love this solution. I basically set it up and just forget it, unless I hit a website that needs to be whitelisted. Occasionally I'll likely have to update it too, but I doubt very often.
Last edited by fudge_u on May 25th, 2022 11:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Canuck_TO wrote: Why is it that only some of the links are wrapped in referral links?
It seems that not all links are though.
Not sure... maybe they went with popular stores? Maybe those referral links only work with certain websites? No money made off clicks for certain websites, so no point in wrapping the URLs. Not sure.
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Feb 27, 2007
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fudge_u wrote: Yup... RFD uses referral links so they can't make money off clicks. You'll need to whitelist them as you come across them.
That's the concept behind OISD; it attempts to provide adblocking and the expense of functionality it reverses that and only blocks what it can without breaking anything.

From their website:
The Full list blocks:
Ads, (Mobile) App Ads, Phishing, Malvertising, Malware, Spyware, Ransomware, CryptoJacking, Scam ... Telemetry/Analytics/Tracking (Where not needed for proper functionality)

Does not interfere with:
Torrent, Warez, Porn, Crypto Exchanges, News Satire, Slickdeals (or shopping sites in general), Google (shopping), Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Link Shortners, Affiliate/Tracking Links, Gambling, Surveys, etc.
If you're not also using Ublock/Adguard/Etc with other lists it's beyond rare to have something break, and if it does reporting it gets it fixed in less than a day. Highly recommended if you're just trying to get rid of ads and a few other annoyances without interrupting anyone's internet experience.
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von Monster wrote: That's the concept behind OISD; it attempts to provide adblocking and the expense of functionality it reverses that and only blocks what it can without breaking anything.

From their website:



If you're not also using Ublock/Adguard/Etc with other lists it's beyond rare to have something break, and if it does reporting it gets it fixed in less than a day. Highly recommended if you're just trying to get rid of ads and a few other annoyances without interrupting anyone's internet experience.
Agreed.... it "attempts" to block what it can without breaking anything, but referral links are becoming more and more common. You almost need to unblock or whitelist Honey's list of referral/redirector/cashback sites.

https://www.joinhoney.com/whitelist/hon ... opping.txt
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Feb 27, 2007
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It does that though - not using Honey's list specifically but multiple other shopping lists. It does miss a few Canadian specific links, but nothing I've found here. The one I did find -elsewhere- was manually added to the list in under a day with an email from the maintainer confirming.

https://oisd.nl/includedlists/whitelists

No matter which list you use you will always find something that breaks, I just find OISD really simplifies things and makes the "why doesn't this work' questions mostly disappear :).
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von Monster wrote: It does that though - not using Honey's list specifically but multiple other shopping lists. It does miss a few Canadian specific links, but nothing I've found here. The one I did find -elsewhere- was manually added to the list in under a day with an email from the maintainer confirming.

https://oisd.nl/includedlists/whitelists

No matter which list you use you will always find something that breaks, I just find OISD really simplifies things and makes the "why doesn't this work' questions mostly disappear :).
Ah... that's assuming you only us OISD for ad-blocking and nothing else. I guess that means I'd need to disable all of the other ad-block lists?
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fudge_u wrote: Ah... that's assuming you only us OISD for ad-blocking and nothing else. I guess that means I'd need to disable all of the other ad-block lists?
The authors recommendation from his faq:
Do you have any other recommendations besides this blocklist? Link Symbol
Yes. This is a domain blocklist, designed to be used in a network wide DNS based ad-blocker (Eg. Adguard Home, Pi-hole). Since it cannot block youtube ads, hide ad-placeholders, or ads being served from the same domain as the wanted content, a browser add-on ad-blocker (Eg. uBlock Origin or the AdGuard Browser extension) is recommended.
and from his Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/oisd_blocklist ... blocklist/
Should I leave the default lists enabled? ✔️
When using this list in browser add-on blockers (eg. uBlock Origin); Yes definitely, as this is not meant to be a replacement for it's default lists.

When using this list in network based DNS blockers (eg Pi-hole, Adguard Home); I'd say NO, but I'm not unbiased. (If wanting to use the groups-feature in Pi-hole for example, it's only logic to use multiple lists)

Where the default lists are known to break stuff (shopping referral links, google shopping, video playback, etc), the whole idea of this blocklist is to have ZERO breakage, That's why if you share my opinon on having a functional internet experience as first priority and an ad/tracker/etc blocking as second you use this as your only blocklist.

If you don't share that opinion, please DO keep the defaults enabled, or use the oisd extra add-on alongside oisd full/basic.
What I do as use it as my only list in my Ad Guard Home instance, but also run uBlock origin in my browser and whitelist what I need to there. Anyone not using their own adblocker on my network gets the majority of crap blocked by AGH/OISD, and I get to fine tune my experience how I want without having to deal with the support issues blocking everything at the DNS level provokes :).
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von Monster wrote: The authors recommendation from his faq:



and from his Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/oisd_blocklist ... blocklist/



What I do as use it as my only list in my Ad Guard Home instance, but also run uBlock origin in my browser and whitelist what I need to there. Anyone not using their own adblocker on my network gets the majority of crap blocked by AGH/OISD, and I get to fine tune my experience how I want without having to deal with the support issues blocking everything at the DNS level provokes :).
Ya... I figure if I just use the built-in ad-block lists along with OISD, then I'm not going to bother with using a browser extension for blocking ads. I already have million extensions running, don't need another to bog things down.
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fudge_u wrote: Ya... I figure if I just use the built-in ad-block lists along with OISD, then I'm not going to bother with using a browser extension for blocking ads. I already have million extensions running, don't need another to bog things down.
an in-browser extension will always block ads better than a DNS based solution. I wouldn't recommend removing, personally.
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Dave98 wrote: an in-browser extension will always block ads better than a DNS based solution. I wouldn't recommend removing, personally.
I like OISD for the DNS solution, and then adding on with uBlock Origin using the default lists. Most things just work, and I don't accidentally break any mobile/iot/etc or the families regular (nonfiltered) internet.

But really, everyone has to find a solution that works for them and their households - took a trip recently and just realized how unbrowsable the internet is nowadays if let unfiltered.
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Dave98 wrote: an in-browser extension will always block ads better than a DNS based solution. I wouldn't recommend removing, personally.
I don't really visit any harmful sites so I'm not too worried about it. If the odd thing slips by, I'm not going to worry about unless it actually causes an issue. If anything, I'd get uBlock Origin just to block Youtube ads.
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fudge_u wrote: I don't really visit any harmful sites so I'm not too worried about it. If the odd thing slips by, I'm not going to worry about unless it actually causes an issue. If anything, I'd get uBlock Origin just to block Youtube ads.
It's not even that. Like the other post mentioned, things like cosmetic filtering (for removing blank spaces left behind), and blocking youtube ads, just provide a better experience. To me, removing it is just downgrading the adblocking experience for little, if any, gain.

In browser extensions also do like 95% of the work anyway when you have it installed. I really only have pihole/adguard home installed for non-laptop/desktop devices.
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Dave98 wrote: It's not even that. Like the other post mentioned, things like cosmetic filtering (for removing blank spaces left behind), and blocking youtube ads, just provide a better experience. To me, removing it is just downgrading the adblocking experience for little, if any, gain.

In browser extensions also do like 95% of the work anyway when you have it installed. I really only have pihole/adguard home installed for non-laptop/desktop devices.
I'll monitor things and then decide whether I want to add an extension back or not. I have the DNS setup at the router level with DoH enabled in my browser, and so far nothing's jumped out at me. There's an acceptable amount of things I'm willing to tolerate, but if my browsing experience becomes unbearable I'll consider adding uBlock Origin again.

Trying to catch everything out there becomes a pain in the ass, and at some point you need to decide on what's acceptable and what's not. If it's something cosmetic and minor to the point where it don't even notice, do I really care? Even if I do notice how much does it actually affect my experience?

Eventually it gets to the point where you end up spending more time whitelisting sites and you don't know if it's your browser extension or AGH/Pi-Hole server where it needs to be done. The way I look at it, this is a huge upgrade over what my Unifi Dream Router could do and it won't affect the throughput. My throughput took a hit when I enabled some of the security features, and then I was reading the stuff that Ubiquiti uses is a bit archaic compared to what's available out there.

Since I also setup AGH in the cloud, I can setup the DNS at my brother's and parents place. I've whitelisted the three of our IP address so no one else can connect to the server.
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fudge_u wrote: Ideally, I'd rather use a paid service but only if I could find a lifetime license/subscription to a reputable service without having to pay an arm and a leg.
I use IONOS VPS

512 Meg
1 Core
10 Gig SSD
Unlimited Traffic
Choice of Linux Distro

https://www.ionos.ca/servers/vps

Cost is 1$ CAD per month

The bandwidth is only 500 mbps, but for DNS that is plenty. Using it to run AdGuard Home for over a year
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Gee wrote: I use IONOS VPS

512 Meg
1 Core
10 Gig SSD
Unlimited Traffic
Choice of Linux Distro

https://www.ionos.ca/servers/vps

Cost is 1$ CAD per month

The bandwidth is only 500 mbps, but for DNS that is plenty. Using it to run AdGuard Home for over a year
Thanks.... will check them out. Backed up my configuration in Oracle so if things go down or Oracle decides they want to start billing, I have an escape plan. Oracle's free tier is supposed to be free for life with no strings attached, but they could change their mind one day or try to pull a fast one on customers.
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Dave98 wrote: It's not even that. Like the other post mentioned, things like cosmetic filtering (for removing blank spaces left behind), and blocking youtube ads, just provide a better experience. To me, removing it is just downgrading the adblocking experience for little, if any, gain.

In browser extensions also do like 95% of the work anyway when you have it installed. I really only have pihole/adguard home installed for non-laptop/desktop devices.
AdGuard etc, works really work for mobile apps.
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fudge_u wrote: Agreed. I didn't want to pay for a VPS/Cloud server so I was trying to track down a free service, and the best I could find was Oracle. As far as I can tell there are no catches. Ideally, I'd rather use a paid service but only if I could find a lifetime license/subscription to a reputable service without having to pay an arm and a leg.
Nothing wrong with Oracle Cloud Free Tier. I'm frugal, too. You just want to make sure you're actively using your account, I suspect, so they don't flag your account as inactive.

Cheers,
Doug
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dmehus wrote: Nothing wrong with Oracle Cloud Free Tier. I'm frugal, too. You just want to make sure you're actively using your account, I suspect, so they don't flag your account as inactive.

Cheers,
Doug
I didn't login to my OCI account for a few months and they ended up deleting my VM. I setup AGH in a Proxmox LXC on one of my systems today and already noticed it works better than it did on the OCI. As nice as it was to have AGH in the cloud, it just seems to perform better when it resides on a local network. It seems to do a better job filtering and at least you can properly track which devices are having issues if you encounter any.
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fudge_u wrote: I didn't login to my OCI account for a few months and they ended up deleting my VM. I setup AGH in a Proxmox LXC on one of my systems today and already noticed it works better than it did on the OCI. As nice as it was to have AGH in the cloud, it just seems to perform better when it resides on a local network. It seems to do a better job filtering and at least you can properly track which devices are having issues if you encounter any.
I have an instance on Proxmox for local use. But I can’t use it on my cell phone when I am away from the house. (Don’t want to VPN)

That is why I set up the cloud version on IONOS. It give me DNS over HTTPS (DoH) which I can use on Android and iOS

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