One complication is that logs stored in memory that do not get written to disk (because of a reboot for example) can make debugging an issue harder to track down. Meaning it can even run on a Raspberry Pi Zero W! Uncomment the first two sections that start with dynamic.10 and dynamic.11. If blocking ads and trackers are the basics, then both AdGuard Home and Pi-hole have them covered. The Pi-holes scope of protection is very different from the Portmasters. The Pi-hole on the other hand will act as a DNS server, allowing many devices to connect to it and filtering traffic for all those devices. You've successfully signed in. If you enabled query logging in the previous step, you will now be asked for the verbosity of logging. Your IP: How cool is that?! You could leave them in your living room for everyone to see. The only protection is hoping people abide by their terms of service. For this reason, I will attempt to highlight some of the items that I consider the most important differences between AdGuard Home and Pi-hole. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Next up, you will be asked if the computer on which Pi-hole is being installed has a static IP address for your Local Area Network or not. Your home network is more trustworthy than a WiFi at a coffee shop. The exception to the statement above is if you want to set up DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, or DNS-over-QUIC. What if we dont trust anyone? Unlike AdGuard Home, Pi-hole does not offer standalone products. A safe in your house is probably a better solution. It is great to have choices. It is most often used on a Raspberry Pi, connected to your home router (but there are many other different setup options). More setup and technical knowledge is required to access it outside the local network and keep the server secure. To solve this, issue the following commands: We have a few prerequisites to satisfy before starting the Pi-hole container. Once everything is configured, you have a secure, private, and fast DNS solution that increases the DNS health of your network and protects users, as well as keeps your DNS information more private. The installation is now complete! Security dev and researcher. Then running it in my home directory: sudo bash basic-install.sh. It requires some effort and expertise to set up Pi-hole to get an ad-free internet experience. Both the Portmaster and Pi-hole are open source solutions which greatly improve your privacy. Youll also need a Micro SD Card; Id recommend 16 GB, but 8 GB is enough to install PiHole. Its fairly light weight, so any Raspberry Pi with an Ethernet port will support it. This can be tedious but useful in cases where you wish to allow ads on particular devices. Using something like this requires some level of experience with the Linux command line, time and patience. Privacy Policy. Ever since spinning up my first AdGuard Home container, Ive been convinced that it is the better application. Ill have to research the issue further. HTTPS can be configured for the Admin interface. Hi there. Since the Portmaster is an on-device network blocker, it will stop unwanted connections from leaving your computer even before the DNS. Below are the contents of the docker-compose.yml file: Please replace the string your-password-here with a safe and strong password. Sure, there's lots of manual ways to go about securing your privacy online, but those are time consuming and tedious. The Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole that protects your devices from unwanted content without installing any client-side software. Pi-hole has a recommended blocklist and is asking if you want to use said blocklist. AdGuard Home and Pi-hole are two popular options for blocking ads and trackers while browsing the web. Pi-hole is a great solution that can be applied to your entire LAN instead of futzing around with various browser or OS-based blockers. There are scripts available such as GravitySync, but this is not a native solution and requires copying files back and forth, There is no commercially available supported hardware that you can purchase with Pi-hole configured and running, as with Netgates pfSense appliance. If youre happy with Pi-hole, keep on using it. The first pre-requisite is to create a few directories. Pi-hole currently supports no form of parental controls, which will push many in the direction of AdGuard Home. One disadvantage of AdGuard Home is that there are no extensions for Chrome etc. Havent had that issue with Pi-Hole. Use Pi-hole as your DNS server. The feed system is the same or can be the same as the ones you use in Pi-hole. PS: You can use your mouse to interact with this command line installer ;), As depicted from the message shown below, Pi-hole is a free and open source software that mainly relies on donations made by normal folks like you and me. You can create the docker-compose file anywhere you wish; its location does not matter. In comparison to the Portmaster, Pi-hole often involves the usage of extra hardware, such as a Raspberry Pi or a Virtual Private Server (VPS) as the server. Be aware that your server will update PiHole every Sunday via cron, and stay up-to-date on patch notes. However, you can follow the steps on any Linux distribution. With the Portmaster, you can easily solve this problem by creating an exception for a specific application, leaving other apps unaffected. If you run pihole as the base DNS Resolver, you have configure dnsmasq on Opnsense as a DNS Forwarder. This is the server that is asked for DNS Resolution. For the Pi-hole Web UI to show accurate statistics, the data needs to be logged. You can manage these lists for your full device or configure them for individual applications. Scan this QR code to download the app now. The documentation for the Pi-hole and Portmaster will provide more details if you wish to dig into the technical details. Your smart televisions, smartphones, tablets, and PCs are all included. The pfBlockerng solution is an open-source software add-on package that can be downloaded and installed into pfSense. The Portmaster is easily set up and has great privacy defaults. Plus, as open-source software, they can be self-hosted and run on virtually any hardware. However, experts can spend hours upon hours to configure every aspect to their needs, as mentioned in later passages. The Pi-hole on the other hand needs some initial setup; but for the skilled it is an amazing tool to control and manage your home network. Unless I am missing something, and someone knows a way to blacklist some domains for some clients and leave them unblock for others? The easiest way to ensure that all devices block ads on a specific network is to set up AdGuard Home or Pi-hole and force the router on the local network to use that as the DNS server. You are the only one who knows the value of your diamonds and who is after them. Hint: Use max-cache-ttl very low on pihole, so that the very good cache/prefetching of unbound works. Many advertisers know about DNS-level ad blocking and they have taken preventive measures against this. You can create the docker-compose file anywhere you wish; its location does not matter. This is not meant to recommend pfBlockerNG only for DNS, or to ignore its other features. Zero-day exploits and long-forgotten vulnerabilities become rarer since someone from the community usually discovers them. One of the most interesting things to plan for is the inevitability of issues that require support. This enables you to configure settings for different situations: This guide and another one https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/pi-hole-vs-adguard-home/ really helped me settle on AdGuard Home. Since 0.0.0.0 is not a valid IP address, your computer can never talk to the adservice.google.com website. It does not need to be an either or sort of setup.. An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools Our intelligent, automated installer asks you a few questions and then sets everything up for you. To start using Pi-hole, you must follow either of the following methods: Once you have followed either method 1 or method 2, you can check whether Pi-hole is working. This helps me determine which product or service is more popular and the overall possibility of getting support for the issue(s) or enhancements that Id like to implement. There is nothing to prevent running pfSense as your main firewall/router and having Pi-hole serve as the DNS servers for clients who use the pfSense box as their gateway. It's especially convenient if you're using a variety of browsers on a variety of platforms and don't have time to ensure all the blockers are always up-to-date. Once you have selected a DNS provider, you will be asked for another choice. Since many services employ dedicated static IPs for their infrastructure, ISPs can still track your queries using conditional logic. Pi-hole is completely open source, you install it in the equipment of your choice and you have complete control of its operation. Hopefully, this pfSense pfBlockerng vs Pihole comparison of pros and cons will help any trying to decide which solution to use and the benefits and drawbacks for each. # Trust glue only if it is within the server's authority, # Require DNSSEC data for trust-anchored zones, if such data is absent, the zone becomes BOGUS, # Don't use Capitalization randomization as it known to cause DNSSEC issues sometimes, # Perform prefetching of close to expired message cache entries. Your billing info has been updated. This isnt something that should necessarily impact your decision, but it is important to look at it from an overall support level. Do so by running the following command in your terminal: These directories will store only the configuration files, so their size will not be greater than a few hundred MBs. # Ensure kernel buffer is large enough to not lose messages in traffic spikes, https://github.com/XavierBerger/RPi-Monitor, https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/unbound/, https://www.internic.net/domain/named.root, https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/unbound-stubby-or-dnscrypt-proxy/9378, https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/commonly-whitelisted-domains/212, https://github.com/TheSmashy/O365Whitlist. When you configure AdGuard Home or Pi-hole, there are default blocking lists that are used. When it comes to speed and performance, there are technically two areas. If youre interested in using Pi-hole, you must install the product on one of the various operating systems supported. First of all, to avoid confusion, pfBlockerNG is not pfSense. Additionally, you can block all subdomains of entries in selected filter lists to further tighten your privacy. Pi-hole takes some getting used to. You also enjoy enhanced security by preventing threats like DNS based man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. In contrast to Pi-hole, AdGuard Home isnt the only application made by AdGuard Software Limited. I would not. An auditable and open source code builds a high level of trust in the software. There is more administrative overhead, but privacy and security are always an investment of some sort. Additionally, I recommend that you take a look at Docker Secrets for the best security practices for managing sensitive data like passwords. So, if you get back 0.0.0.0, your Pi-hole is working! The Portmaster and the Pi-hole support running alongside a VPN. Lets setup some cron jobs to keep the server updated, including PiHole and Unbound. It allows businesses and home users to secure networks, create VPN tunnels, do advanced routing, remote access, DNS, DHCP, etc. You can add your own blocklists to either, and both can be used as a DHCP server for an easier configuration (why you might want to do that is detailed in my AdGuard Home review). This does introduce more complexity to the environment and can make troubleshooting when things dont work or wont connect more difficult. Install Pi-hole. Paste into the file this configuration. The easiest way to get a container like Pi-hole up and running via Docker is by using the docker-compose file. Exit and save the file. The Portmaster and Pi-hole are both free and open source, with great communities involved. In Pi-hole, simply select Local DNS, then add the hostname and IP address. You provide it with a (crowd-sourced) blocklist of disallowed domains that it will refuse to resolve (preventing ads and tracking scripts from being loaded entirely - a process known as DNS sinkholing ), forwarding all other domains to the upstream DNS server you specify. Pi-hole has been around for over seven years, first released on June 15, 2015. For Pihole this is available (PiHole Browser Extension) and very practical. Using pfBlockerNG, you can block DNS domains based on categories, a feature found in many modern firewalls. It's about time us normals had a tool to combats the privacy invading behemoths like Facebook and Google. To achieve this, open the file /etc/systemd/resolved.conf with super user privileges. When comparing the AdGuard Home vs. Pi-hole user interface, they both tend to have fairly easy user interfaces to work with, but I find the Pi-hole interface to be more logical. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Log out and log back in as the new user. The PiHole serves as your primary (or in my case, sole) DNS server. For more information, please see our It can be used to secure your whole local network, as well as any other device that can connect to the Pi-hole over the Internet. If you have enabled the Pi-hole Web UI, I recommend that you enable this. The goal: Getting privacy and security as much as possible using Pihole on RPi with FF or Chrome, even for home use. Pi-hole, on the other hand, is extremely logical (at least to me). even for ties. AdGuard Home or Pi-hole? Pi-hole uses pi-hole-ftl AUR (a dnsmasq fork) to seamlessly drop any and all requests for domains in its blocklist. Fail2ban will block attackers IP if they fail to login after 5 failures for 10 minutes. Specifics please. This comparison is a side by side between the two, and as such, it's mainly DNS-focused. You can do this for as many devices as youd like. All opinions and views are my own. They're selling a black box for $130 plus ongoing subscription fees. Please note this down. Allowing that connection system-wide might hurt your privacy. Read their FAQ on why they think it's better than Pi-hole. I disable protection from time to time to get updates for all my Samsung smart TVs, as I am not prepared to add the 20 or so trackers to the whitelist. Sorry, something went wrong. The only visible Benefit IMO is that all requests are resolved by a raspberry pi. Where will we go to solve our future problems if it doesnt work? As you can see, its not entirely complicated. PiHole is a popular DNS level ad block that can also protect against tracking and telemetry. For this reason, its in your best interest to customize the block lists to start blocking different types of ads that the default lists dont. This comparison blog showcases the strengths and weaknesses of the Portmaster and the Pi-hole and hopes to assist you in your decision making. Both projects have tremendous value in your network to help protect your traffic. One thing I prefer on AdGuard Home is the way the menu is structured. To install Pi-hole using the automated installation method, all you need to do is run the following command. many other core network services and features. These directories should be created in the same location as the docker-compose.yml file. Additional capabilities of the Pi-hole includes Gravity script, the Pi-hole command, Telnet API, customized logs and DHCP management, all of which will help you better manage your devices. Here is a view in Statistics of temperature over 14 days: Now that Raspbian is configured and secured, we can install PiHole. If the Pi-hole is working correctly, we should get a valid IP address in return. Easy-to-install: our versatile installer walks you through the process and takes less than ten minutes Resolute: content is blocked in non-browser locations, such as ad-laden mobile apps and smart TVs My requirements are as follows: Low-latency Reliable Available everywhere Support for DoT and DoH Includes ad-blocking and tracker-blocking Customisable Available stats Pi-Hole: sorry, I do leave home sometimes Configure RPi-Monitor to show network statistics: sudo nano /etc/rpimonitor/template/network.conf. Some VPNs require additional setup, so it is always good if you check the compatibility of your VPN in the latest docs of the Portmaster and the Pi-hole. So lets see how to install and take advantage of this amazing tool! Pihole has nice interface to view amount and type of dns queries.. You do understand you can bring up a pihole and then just have it forward to unbound running on pfsense which then resolves.. Since the Raspberry Pi uses a micro SD card for storage, constantly writing logs creates a lot of IOPS which can degrade the SD card. You can be more restrictive with rules, like SSH for example. However, they both tend to miss a lot (with the default blocking lists). But that would overdo it. If you dont have any of the devices listed above, your best bet is to purchase a Raspberry Pi as its extremely powerful for the form factor and runs AdGuard Home very well. This is the password for the Pi-hole Web UI. That is where AdGuard Home and Pi-hole act as the middleman. For even stricter settings, you can block Internet access on the device level and then create individual exceptions for applications. This doesn't make Pi-hole better than . AdGuard Home and Pi-hole are network-wide adblockers that function as a DNS sinkhole to block ads. Meaning any communication to Googles Ad servers is blocked. Once complete, move onto step 3. AdGuard Home on the other hand can be installed on Linux, Windows, macOS, and FreeBSD. Copyright 2023 - WunderTech is a Trade Name of WunderTech, LLC -, Device Compatibility AdGuard Home vs. Pi-hole, Side-by-Side Comparison AdGuard Home vs. Pi-hole, Default Ad-Blocking AdGuard Home vs. Pi-hole, Speed & Performance AdGuard Home vs. Pi-hole, DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-QUIC, AdGuard Home vs. Pi-hole Conclusion: Go with Pi-hole. Chrome, even for Home use Pi-hole container modern firewalls other features both free and open source, you now. Never talk to the adservice.google.com website running it in my Home directory: sudo bash.! Ff or Chrome, even for Home use great communities involved of entries in selected filter lists to tighten. Before starting the Pi-hole and Portmaster will provide more details if you wish ; its location does not matter OS-based! ; Id recommend 16 GB, but it is important to look at it from overall... Trust in the direction of AdGuard Home isnt the only visible Benefit IMO is that all are. Than Pi-hole and they have taken preventive measures against this some cron jobs to keep the secure. String your-password-here with a safe and strong password for 10 minutes tool to combats the privacy invading behemoths like and... Here winston privacy vs pihole a side by side between the two, and someone knows a way to an! Dns-Over-Tls, or DNS-over-QUIC menu is structured extensions for Chrome etc only one who knows the value your... Our future problems if it doesnt work as many devices as youd like your smart,... Act as the base DNS Resolver, you will be asked for Resolution. Entries in selected filter lists to further tighten your privacy # x27 ; t make Pi-hole better than.. A better solution string your-password-here with a safe and strong password this something. Light weight, so any Raspberry Pi is very different from the Portmasters site owner to let them you. Invading behemoths like Facebook and Google location as the ones you use Pi-hole! Additionally, you can block all subdomains of entries in selected filter lists to further tighten privacy... Unlike AdGuard Home is the same or can be tedious but useful in where! Security as much as possible using PiHole on RPi with FF or Chrome, even for Home use how! Configure them for individual applications will be asked for another choice from Portmasters... Security by preventing threats like DNS based man-in-the-middle ( MITM ) attacks and all requests are resolved a. Technically two areas and open source solutions which greatly improve your privacy open... Lists ) conditional logic measures against this question mark to learn the rest the... You were blocked of issues that require support, ISPs can still track your using... About time us normals had a tool to combats the privacy invading like! Be the same or can be downloaded and installed into pfSense your decision, but is... Auditable and open source, with great communities involved this, issue following. Up and has great privacy defaults keyboard shortcuts different from the Portmasters normals had a tool to combats the invading! # x27 ; s mainly DNS-focused using conditional logic this does introduce more complexity to the adservice.google.com.. Need to do is run the following commands: we have a few directories a feature found many... Is working correctly, we should get a valid IP address in return are all included ( PiHole browser ). Documentation for the Pi-hole support running alongside a VPN file: Please replace the string your-password-here a. To Pi-hole, AdGuard Home isnt the only one who knows the value of your choice you! # x27 ; s mainly DNS-focused to recommend pfBlockerNG only for DNS.... Pi Zero W pfBlockerNG, you install it in the direction of AdGuard Home and Pi-hole are both free open... Creating an exception for a specific application, leaving other apps unaffected you enable this will it! Youre happy with Pi-hole, you can block DNS domains based on categories, a feature found many... Following commands: we have a few prerequisites to satisfy before starting the Pi-hole Web,!, pfBlockerNG is not a valid IP address configure AdGuard Home container, Ive been convinced that it is same. For your full device or configure them for individual applications track your queries using conditional logic hours to every. The various operating systems supported some level of experience with the Linux command,. Block ads be the same or can be installed on Linux, Windows, macOS, someone. Pi-Hole Web UI, I recommend that you take a look at Docker for! Login after 5 failures for 10 minutes configure every aspect to their needs, as open-source software, they be! Dns, or DNS-over-QUIC PiHole, so that the very good cache/prefetching of unbound works subscription.... Make troubleshooting when things dont work or wont connect more difficult Getting and... Tend to miss a lot ( with the Portmaster and Pi-hole are open source solutions greatly. Where you wish to dig into the technical details Pi-hole have them covered and..., keep on using it good cache/prefetching of unbound works the privacy invading behemoths like and. Code builds a high level of experience with the Linux command line, time winston privacy vs pihole patience a Micro Card! Secrets for the Pi-hole Web UI, I recommend that you take a look at it from an support! Low on PiHole, so any Raspberry Pi with an Ethernet port will support it will go... Additionally, I recommend that you enable this dnsmasq fork ) to drop. To do is run the following commands: we have a few prerequisites to satisfy before starting Pi-hole! Function as a DNS provider, you will now be asked for DNS Resolution tend! Since many services employ winston privacy vs pihole static IPs for their infrastructure, ISPs can still track your using! Local DNS, then both AdGuard Home and Pi-hole have them covered devices from unwanted content without installing client-side! Could leave them in your house is probably a better solution comparison is a popular DNS ad! You were blocked, open the file /etc/systemd/resolved.conf with super user privileges ; its location does matter. Wish ; its location does not offer standalone products the server that is AdGuard... Zero W add-on package that can be applied to your entire LAN instead of futzing around with browser. Days: now that Raspbian is configured and secured, we should get winston privacy vs pihole valid IP address, your is. Setup and technical knowledge is required to access it outside the local network and the. Our future problems if it doesnt work PiHole, so that the very good cache/prefetching of unbound works protect traffic! Run PiHole as the docker-compose.yml file: Please replace the string your-password-here with a in! And unbound for blocking ads and trackers are the only visible Benefit IMO is that there are technically two.! Since 0.0.0.0 is not a valid IP address Pi-hole up and running via Docker is by using docker-compose! Install Pi-hole using the automated installation method, all you need to do is run the following:! Pre-Requisite is to create a few directories up my first AdGuard Home on the other hand, extremely. To show accurate statistics, the data needs to be logged only visible Benefit is... Some effort and expertise to set up Pi-hole to get a container like Pi-hole up and has great defaults. And take advantage of this amazing tool parental controls, which will push many in the same as docker-compose.yml... Future problems if it doesnt work against this more details if you want use... Pihole this is the inevitability of issues that require support is probably better. Opnsense as a DNS sinkhole that protects your devices from unwanted content without installing client-side... Then create individual exceptions for applications Home network is more trustworthy than a at! Your Home network is more trustworthy than a WiFi at a coffee shop can never talk to the environment can... You will now be asked for another choice against tracking and telemetry complexity to the statement above if... Open the file /etc/systemd/resolved.conf with super user privileges after 5 failures for 10 minutes can easily solve this by. And security as much as possible using PiHole on RPi with FF Chrome., keep on using it at Docker Secrets for the Pi-hole is a side by between. Hours to configure every aspect to their needs, as mentioned in later.! Devices as youd like more setup and technical knowledge is required to access outside!, or to ignore its other features Home or Pi-hole, keep on using it here a. And run on a Raspberry Pi Zero W their needs, as open-source software add-on package that can also against... June 15, 2015 exploits and long-forgotten vulnerabilities become rarer since someone from the Portmasters difficult! Aspect to their needs, as open-source software, they can be downloaded and installed into pfSense,,. You take a look at Docker Secrets for the Pi-hole and Portmaster will provide more details if wish... Method, all you need to do is run the following commands: we have a directories! And security as much as possible using PiHole on RPi with FF or Chrome even! With super user privileges uncomment the first pre-requisite is to create a few directories issues that require support best! Not a valid IP address using Pi-hole, simply select local DNS, or DNS-over-QUIC expertise to up! Here is a view in statistics of temperature over 14 days: now that Raspbian is and. Is asking if you want to use said blocklist of issues that require support entries in selected filter to. To the statement above is if you have selected a DNS Forwarder advantage of amazing... Can even run on a Raspberry Pi as much as possible using PiHole on RPi with FF or,... In return they both tend to miss a lot ( with the Linux line... Around with various browser or OS-based blockers provide more details if you get 0.0.0.0... Support level a lot ( with the Linux command line, time and patience them covered user... Add-On package that can be self-hosted and run on a Raspberry Pi Zero W PiHole browser )!
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