Comment by t0astbread | Hacker News Reader

Comment by t0astbread | Hacker News Reader

I use a slightly customized version of the Energized Protection[1] block list, which acts as a DNS sinkhole but is really just a text file that you paste into /etc/hosts. Before that I was using Pi-Hole but I found it too cumbersome to maintain properly. (Additionally /etc/hosts entries are way easier to scan, modify and verify for non-maliciousness IMO.)

In my browser I use uMatrix since it gives me fine-grained control over what websites can do. I have very strict default policies that break most sites but you can set them to whatever you want.

Additionally I've written my own regex-based request blocker[2] for YouTube midroll- and page ads since I don't trust other, more opaque ad blocking solutions that handle those (like AdBlock Plus). It does break all other Google services I'm aware of however. (Which I could patch but I don't really mind.)

[1]: https://github.com/EnergizedProtection/block [2]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ytblocker

Oh and I also changed some defaults in Firefox's about:config to disable some integrated services that are likely to include tracking and tracking-vulnerable web APIs. I do realize that this might make me more fingerprintable though.

Don't you notice a slowdown in your connection on using a 20MB hosts file?

Not at all.

I also just checked via dig if there is any slowdown and dig didn't report any. (I first queried google.com with the large hosts file, then replaced the hosts file with a default one, cleaned my DNS caches and requeried and it didn't show any speedup.)

Furthermore, I don't know how Pi-Hole works internally so I don't know if it's somehow specially optimized compared to /etc/hosts or implements any caching strategies but wouldn't introducing another server in your DNS chain slow things down more than /etc/hosts which is always present anyways?

No, I don't, but years ago [eons], hosts files tended to redirect to 127.0.0.1, which does incur a penalty. Directing to 0.0.0.0 [invalid IP] does not (or not any more).

In my experience, the size of the hosts file matters on some devices, and some os.

On older versions of Windows, for example, networking and browsing slows noticeably as the size of the host file increases.

The same can be said for rootable mobile devices, though it’s less noticeable off WiFi because cellular latency is so much higher.

I would guess, marginal consumer and home routers will suffer with larger hosts files, but I don’t have sufficient experience to claim this for certain.

Background: years of discussions and issues at https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts, which I maintain.

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