Can Someone Give Me A Pi-Hole Walkthrough?

[DanceswithUnix]

Thinking about this I may actually need a new router as well as the Virgin Media hub you can't change the DNS

If you can disable DHCP, then you should be able to set up a DHCP server on the Pi as well and that could then point devices at itself for DNS.

[Jonj1611]

I can disable DHCP. Is a DHCP server easy enough to setup ?

[Rob_B]

You tick a box, dead easy

I'll look at my router again when I get home, was sure I couldn't get it to work.

[Percy1983]

I ran it in docker on HTPC/media server.

To honest I found it wasn't much better than just running Adblock software etc and in many ways worse and have since uninstalled. It doesn't stop youtube/facebook ads as they now run in the same content servers.

[Rob_B]

It covers every device in my home, for that alone its worth it for me, a lot of devices simply don't have the option to adblock easily (smart TV etc)

[jimbouk]

I had it working for a little while running in a Pi 3+, very much just did the RTFM option from their website. For some reason it didn't survive a restart of the Pi, service wouldn't come up or something. The EE router DNS was a bit weird, it didn't update the records on each box (they still thought it was the DNS server) but all requests when from the router to the Pi which made finding out what different computers were doing a challenge. Good for some stopping some streaming service adverts but messed up the click through redirects - I was happy to edit the link to pull out the string but caused too much grief for the other half (and on mobile tbh).

All in all a nice experiment, but we just use the mute button on the TV and chat for a minute between reels.

[jimbouk]

Double post as on mobile and easier than updating above...

The couple of use cases above do match well - blocking particular sites on a network and devices where you can't install an ad-blocker. A dedicated dumb smart device network world be ideal (PlayStation, Chromecast, TVs, etc) but that's going to require some dedicated networking hardware to setup I assume.

[Jonj1611]

For me in my use case I am not looking to block ads. I am looking to block sites so I think it will do the job I want

[Rob_B]

You still after a Pi? I'm having a clearout and have found my spare Pi Zero W + IR camera setup. Will stick on the classifieds if interested or it'll end up on eBay

[Jonj1611]

Hey mate, I'm not anymore actually but thanks for thinking of me. Went a different direction in the end.

[Rob_B]

what did you end up with? I tried to get mine working with my Plusnet router again but no joy :/ No one in the house cares apart from me though!

[Jonj1611]

I just got an Asus router with the aiprotection. The sites I want I can block out manually and while there are ways around it, at the moment its doing its job