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Comment by chankstein38 | Hacker News Reader

I was already working my way off of chrome but without a suitable adblocking extension I'm going to move to whatever I have to. I've been using firefox off and on and it seems great and I see someone in the comments recommending Librewolf. Going to have to check that out.

I have been planning for a while to setup a pihole but hadn't yet bothered because I have sufficient ad blockers but definitely going to be doing that now as well.

Well done Google, you succeeded in making at least one person up their adblocking game.

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You can use nextdns [0] pretty much to the same effect of a pihole, yet you can get up and running in minutes. You can then configure wherever you please: your browser, your laptop, your phone, or even your router.

[0]: https://nextdns.io

NextDNS does not help you with ads served from the same domain as the website itself, like Google ads.

Agreed. At the end of the day there is no one tool that will fend off all of it. However, NextDNS/Pihole + uBlock Origin gets you most of the way there. uBlock Origin is particularly helpful for blocking first-party ads.

It can help with subdomains like adservice.google.com

I use NextDNS in my network and I'd say it's well worth the price. I could of course accomplish it with PiHole, but NextDNS just works, and covers my phone when I'm not at home.

I use NextDNS and have crazy battery drain when the app is enabled on my iPhone

Interesting. I'm on Android, so I just use the built-in private DNS support.

I wonder if the apple configuration generator would work better?

On Android 12+ (if my memory serves well), you can use DNS over TLS without having to install any additional software. It seems to cover all of the connections, but I don't think DoT is used when your phone connects to your network for VoWifi and eSIM provisioning connections (I didn't see them in my NextDNS logs)

I was going to ask if anyone else had battery drain with the iPhone VPN enabled (say for pihole, or I’m assuming NextDNS).

I've had this happen to me with iOS and VPNs in general. NextDNS, Wireguard, and most notoriously, Tailscale.

Thank you for this! I had tried OpenDNS setup through my router but it blocked some stuff I didn't want it to and wouldn't, for anything, release the block so I moved back off of it. I'm definitely going to give nextdns a shot!

dns.adguard.com is also a free option

https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

NextDNS also has a free plan, albeit you'll hit the limit quickly.

I don't expect everyone to pay for a service like this, but I think that paying for a service like this is reasonable if you can afford it. There's always a modicum of trust that you must confer on the provider (they're resolving all your DNS queries, and you can view logs if choose to), but paying for it does better in aligning incentives. Otherwise self-hosting is the most privacy-friendly option of all.

Are there any self-hosted options or similar?

Like PiHole?

pihole or adguard home[0]

[0]: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome#getting-started

I do that: well, not pihole but I run unbound on a Pi and I've got my Firefox set to never use the "trusted resolver" (i.e. network trr set to 5... I think the default is still 0/off but you never know).

That way I'm preventing DNS over HTTPS and known ads (and known telemetry) domains cannot resolve sneakily through HTTPS.

I can still, if I want to, have unbound use DoH so that my ISP doesn't spy on me.

But on my LAN there's no DNS over HTTPS.

And unbound accepts wildcards to prevent domains from resolving, which is really sweet.

I wrote my own tiny script (in Clojure / Babashka) which combines several huge DNS blocklists, allows certain domains I'm okay with, merge what can be merged into a single line using wildcards, etc.

Switched to Firefox recently and it was surprisingly painless. They've really catched up to Chrome in regards to usability, and of course surpass them in terms of privacy and integrity.

Firefox caught up to Chrome on usability?

In what way was it behind?

Profiles, there's a couple real simple UI changes Firefox could make that would bring profiles on par with chrome. But won't.

And before someone comes here saying container tabs, it's not the same thing.

I actually like multi-account containers better than profiles. I know it isn't the same thing but I just want to open a work tab for work stuff and a personal tab for other stuff. Couple that with simple tab groups and you have an amazing single window workflow.

It's absolutely amazing with retarded services like MS Teams that don't allow you to be in two tenants at the same time. Same with their admin portals.

Funny how MS is pushing edge and Firefox is the best option to manage their services.

My org doesnt use o365 but for some reason I have to be constantly logged in to 3 tenants at the same time. Of course can not.

And less user hostile features. Like if you press shift, the website can't hijack your contextual menu.

As soon as they get Nvidia Video Super Resolution working consistently in Firefox I’ll switch, hopefully that happens before June of next year.

Switching browsers is good but pihole is a pretty bad alternative to just using uBlock Origin Lite which is quite good.

Pihole blocks stuff for everything on your network. No need to train your family or do anything to machines are devices. While it does not block everything, and sometimes too much. It does block a lot.

By blocking too much, for one of the banks I use blocking their app telemetry causes the app to crash. And sometimes I do want to click on an ad Google serves up when it matches my search and I am buying something.

I can see a sort of 'defense in depth' argument, especially for sending traffic from TVs etc. through your pihole. But in the browser (FF esp.), uBlock origin is excellent.

highly recommend librewolf as well. If you use youtube a lot, you should check out sponsorblock for youtube, youtube windowed full screen and improve youtube! extensions. They make youtube usable again.

Try Egde, their product has secretly jumped leaps and bounds

Sarcasm?

Trying the Edge app:

1. Its built-in Ad block still works on Youtube - before Google catches up, too small a browser competitor Doesn't work in laptop browser.

2. Tab sync: port tabs from Edge from phone to laptop & vice-versa, regardless of OS version. This used to work on Safari from iPhone SE (1st gen) but now it doesn't with new iPhone/iOS

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