Pi-hole vs adblock

Hi guys,

just ouf of curiosity what is “better” adblocking solution for Turris? Adblock package or Pi-hole (on LXE) and why or what are pros and cons of each?

  • Adblock package
  • Pi-hole
  • Other (please specify in reply :slight_smile: )

0 voters

Moved from different thread (not sure what category to choose)

I would say adblock. Why bother with additional LXC layer, when you have package compiled for the kernel of Omnia…

The main advantage of Pi-hole is the fact that it’s not just adblock. You can use it for many reasons. For example you can run speed test of your connection every hour in addon (there’s how to somwhere here on this forum). You can block web with your own blacklists and you easilly can switch DNS servers in the graphic interface (I know, you can do that in Turris too). I like Pi-hole because all of that - it’s simple, with graphic interface and when it’s LXC you can allway shut it easy down. I like it for the graphs and statistics on one place too.

Pihole is not only ADblocker is a DNS server,
I use one omnia for large scale network as main gate, is great for protecting mobile devices and reducing mallware attacks,

Best you can use is combination of Pihole and Adblocker

Isn’t that overkill?

Is there anything you can do with Adblock that PiHole or vice versa?

not really. pi-hole uses dnsmasq as dns backend - adblock has native kresd support and supports dnsmasq, unbound and bind (named) as well. Both block advertisements for every device that connects to your network without the need for any client-side software.

4 Likes

My 2 cents: they’re essentially doing the same thing, but pi-hole is much more complex.

It is an IT maxim that complexity begets less reliability; for DNS: reliability is king!

In short, the few extra sexy bits that pi-hole provides ain’t worth it.

Finally, adblock is a well-supported OpenWrt/LEDE package with a very good track record.

5 Likes

I agree - I wish the install was simpler now… First, latest versions of adblock should be supported by Turris, and then there are still manual steps that require users to go through the commandline. That shouldn be necessary…

To clarify, my concern is more with the complexity of architecture (pi-hole: separate VM/LXC, etc.) vs any complexity of installing.

At the outset, I worked with Pi-hole well, but every change setting (DNS or blacklist entry) caused the problem. Graphs and statistics still works, but some filters item no. Typicaly i.imedia.cz etc. Great graphical interface and stats, but completely unreliable-we are not friends yet

Finally do not filter blacklist entry and I recently switched to AdBlock.

hi there, im doing a comparison for Pihole and adblock plus. i found that when i do packet analyses Ad-block plus consume more tcp connection compare to pihole. is there any reason for this ?

I guess you don’t know if it comes from the adblock itself or knot-resolver? For knot-resolver, due to doing DNSSEC validation, there’s higher likelihood of receiving a large answer that requires TCP, but that should still normally make only a very small fraction of DNS traffic (unless you do TLS forwarding or such).

1 Like

I found that AdBlock Plus have more TCP connection compare to Pi-Hole. However, the bandwidth consume almost the same between those two. I have attached the graph of my analyses. Yes, it showing a different behavior between the test case. But i need to investigate why TCP connection is more on Ad-block plus but less in Pi-hole.


is it because AdBlock Plus communicate with outside proxy ?

1 Like

did you mean the browser plugin? The adblock package is called “adblock” and has nothing to do with such plugin.

2 Likes

Yes browser pugin, the packet captured at gateway side. I found that, it generates more tcp connection compare to DNS pihole adblock. But, the bandwidth consumed almost the same.

And also, i compare the result for two different OS (ubuntu Linux and Windows). Attached Table show the result.

comparison2