We all know it, we just want to browse the web, but constantly being bombarded with annoying and intrusive ads.
These ads are evil. They track our clicks and browsing history, creating a digital profile to bate us with products and services they think we need.

Usually this seems innocent, harmless even, but these ad providers are working with some of the best psychologic experts in order to mess with you until you buy their offerings.

Luckily for you and me, there is a nice little open source project out there, that can block all these ads on every device connected to your home network.

Yes, you read this correctly, every device that is connected to your home network could be ad and tracker free.

Ladies and gentlemen: Pi-hole® Network-wide Ad Blocking!

This little piece of software can be installed on any RaspberryPi model, yes even on RaspberryPi 1, as your very own DNS server.

Imagine Pi-hole as a DNS sinkhole that will block unwanted and malicious domains, and allow others to be identified by other DNS servers such as openDNS, GoogleDNS or any other DNS provider you so choose.

Since Pi-hole blocks domains at the network level, it is more efficient than any browser extension and will also block ads and trackers on your mobile devices and smartTV sets.

In addition to all of that, it provides a neat little, yet powerful, dashboard.
dashboard
Image taken from the Pi-hole project website

Through this powerful dashboard you will be able to:

  • Update community managed blacklists
  • Manage your own black/white lists
  • See all traffic history
  • Query history logs

And much much more!

Setting up Pi-hole on a RaspberryPi is fairly easy. Just follow the instructions listed on the website.
The only thing that might be tricky, is configuring your router to use the Pi as the DNS server.
Every router is different, but if you have managed to get though the installation, I'm sure you will figure it out on your own or with the help of the internet.

I want to thank the Pi-hole team for all the hard work that they have put into this.

If you have found this project useful, please consider a donation, as most small open source projects, every amount can help.