Raspberry π

Got pi-hole to work. More hassle (no SSH on boot, fighting my router to give me a static IP, pi-hole not starting on boot) than I expected and less effective than I expected.

I'm also a little worried about using the pihole as the only DNS lookup thing. If the pihole goes down we have no internet (unless we reset the DNS servers on the router - easy enough but needs a set of instructions for my flatmate). If I use a second server ads still get through.

Also it breaks referral links (i.e. Google shopping which I use a lot). I used a whitelist off the internet but still no. I'm guessing that whitelisting googleadservices.com will result in trillions of ads again.

If I use a second server ads still get through.

What is the second DNS server? Not another pi-hole?

Also it breaks referral links (i.e. Google shopping which I use a lot). I used a whitelist off the internet but still no. I'm guessing that whitelisting googleadservices.com will result in trillions of ads again

Yes. But (at least if you are using one pi-hole, not two), it's pretty trivial to turn ad-blocking on and off.

(I only use mine for DNS + DHCP, not adblocking)

What is the second server? Not another pi-hole?

No, I'd be using Google 8.8.8.8 or something in case the pi-hole goes down.

Yes. But (at least if you are using one pi-hole, not two), it's pretty trivial to turn ad-blocking on and off.

Yeah, I realised this whilst I was mucking about with it yesterday. It's a bit inconvenient though to have to login and disable. Guess I'd rather do that than have ads everywhere!

It helps if you remember that the thing you are clicking on in Google Shopping, that no longer works, is an advert.

I use it to compare prices of things I already want to buy, supposedly it's the best for finding cheap shit

Yep, but Google is showing you the prices of things that it is being paid to display.

Don't get me wrong, I use it too and it is very handy, but in using it you are viewing the market place through the lens of a not disinterested advertising company.

Was looking at comparisons of different cards and came across this:

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-performance-comparison-2018

Realistically, how long to set up pihole?
Is it a block an evening out, do the whole day, a longer period of time?

You need to enable SSH on the pi, I can't remember how but a quick google will tell you.

What % traffic is being blocked?

I like that it blocks the tracking, if I find a product I just go direct to the website - means you can shop without google knowing what you're into - which is the whole point of the pi-hole. You can rapidly whitelist sites in the pi-hole admin site, just view the recent query list and click something like Allow.

Use Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 instead of Google.

How tech savvy are you? It took me an hour or two I guess but I was doing everything by-the-book. It took another hour or so to fix it when I updated it and that wiped the config so I had to go and fix it. I was doing a slightly more complicated setup, using:
https://scotthelme.co.uk/securing-dns-across-all-of-my-devices-with-pihole-dns-over-https-1-1-1-1/

Starting with a fresh install of raspbian lite... about 15 mins.

Stick an empty file called “ssh” in the boot directory for headless set up and do it all from your laptop/phone.

How tech savvy am I?

er.
No comment.

tl;dr
I'm fairly basic, I just want something doing something to help me not see adverts when I'm flicking through my phone at home.

Are you on Android? Installing blokada on your phone will do the same and take 20 seconds.

Or just use the AdGuard dns on your home network.

I'm blocking 15%. Have got SSH enabled now.

I'll get over not having Google shopping... Just nice and easy to click the links and open 30 tabs and pick the cheapest, as I find the Google price doesn't always match up

I've actually given up using pihole. The convenience of Google links outweighs the benefits of ad blocking

When it's going a while I think mine is over 20%.

I still use google product search to find cheapest, etc. I just don't click through on their links, I go to the vendor's site direct.

I use DuckDuckGo for all my searching except product searching and that doesn't happen often enough for it to be an issue. I normally use it to get an idea of pricing only. Then go to my normal, trusted retailers.

But what I mean is Google isn't always up to date with those prices. Sometimes Google says vendor A: £30 vendor B: £32 but then you click through and vendor B has it on offer for £25.

I've got no money any way so in the short term it's a good way of curbing my inner buyer

I know, but you still had to visit that site to find out. So, I search for derailler hanger tool, it shows me 10 options, I take a little bit longer than normal to type in the 2 or 3 places I'm actually likely to buy it from (US ebay, err no thanks google) and job's a good'un.

Spent the afternoon yesterday trying to configure a pi as a DHCP server, something I've done with relative ease in the past. It was an absolute pain in the arse. This morning I've given up and bought a router.

Pihole is a good DHCP server....

It's also a ballache when you're using your router as a DHCP server, and have't quite got the settings correct for DNS forwarding.

Which I have.

As of today.

Which is nice.