ADblocker question

[Eric Lieb]

Right now I use PI-hole on a Rpi2 as a whole home adblocker... I am confused by all the other adblockers that run on the router itself. Is there any advantage to any of them vs PiHole?

 

[Christian_Haitian]

Right now I use PI-hole on a Rpi2 as a whole home adblocker... I am confused by all the other adblockers that run on the router itself. Is there any advantage to any of them vs PiHole?

My understanding is that Diversion provides the same benefits as PiHole without the need for a separate device. I wanted to try PiHole just for the sake of trying it but as effective as Diversion has been, I see no reason to other than for the knowledge of it.

 

[mrchow]

While most solutions are similar in what they do - creating a custom host file for a dns server - there are differences in the features. One difference for example is the backend server the dns server redirects to. In diversion you’re able to use pixelserv-tls, pihole uses lighttpd.

 

[Eric Lieb]

My understanding is that Diversion provides the same benefits as PiHole without the need for a separate device. I wanted to try PiHole just for the sake of trying it but as effective as Diversion has been, I see no reason to other than for the knowledge of it.

I guess my big thing is I love the pihole UI.. makes it very easy to select devices and see which urls they were attempting to hit and easily whitelisting them if it is something I need. Also bring able to suspend pihole with a timer if I need add servers for some reason and it auto reengaging after the timer. Does division have any of these features?

Also wondering if I would see any performance difference if I ran something on the router vs my current setup...

 

[Mutzli]

You can find more info on the diversion site over here:
https://diversion.ch/diversion/use/features.html

 

[Andy1932]

Easy temporary disabling is a nice feature of pihole.

 

[doczenith1]

Easy temporary disabling is a nice feature of pihole.

This can be done with Diversion using iOS shortcuts or an SSH Android app fairly easily. With SSH Button on Android I can disable Diversion with 2 taps. Unfortunately there is no timer function though. More information here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ios-shortcut-for-diversion.55974/

 

[dosborne]

My vote would be Pi-Hole over diversion.

Diversion is great but I found it sucked most of the router resources. If you do run it, I'd suggest a HDD or ssd and NOT a usb stick.

Pi-Hole, or the raspberry Pi in general, gives you many other options too, such as running your own web server.

As the majority of my posts state, I'm a big proponent of getting as much as possible OFF the router to reduce the potential for problems that may result in internet downtime.

If your router goes down, no internet.
If Pi-Hole goes, you get ads.

Weigh the value of one over the other.

 

[Chrisgtl]

I'd like to try Pi-Hole instead of Diversion (if not just to tinker with new stuff).

Anyone have any guides to setting this up and what equipment would I need?

 

[Adamm]

Diversion is great but I found it sucked most of the router resources. If you do run it, I'd suggest a HDD or ssd and NOT a usb stick.

Er, what resources are you referring to? Most peoples USB sticks are bigger then 40MB

skynet@RT-AX88U-DC28:/tmp/mnt/USB/entware/share# du -h /opt/share/diversion
16.6M    /opt/share/diversion/backup
4.0K    /opt/share/diversion/custom
8.0K    /opt/share/diversion/.conf
172.0K    /opt/share/diversion/stats
22.0M    /opt/share/diversion/list
32.0K    /opt/share/diversion/log
364.0K    /opt/share/diversion/file
39.2M    /opt/share/diversion

If your router goes down, no internet.
If Pi-Hole goes, you get ads.

Not sure that's entirely true either, if your Pi-Hole goes down you completely lose DNS functionality.

 

[Ro berto]

With SSH Button on Android I can disable Diversion with 2 taps.

or even better, you can reduce it to a single tap (with the SSH Button widget)

 

[carpov alexandru]

About piehole:
-piehole is a DNS server with an amazing interface that redirects adds to an IP you specify, usually 0.0.0.0
-you MUST configure your router dns to point to piehole for it to work
- if piehole dies, say goodbye to web functionality unless you know all websites IPs. The internet WILL function but no more address conversion, which is kinda like not having internet since you don't know websites by their IP
- you need money to buy a raspberry board, usually a good one or you will get low performance. Some boards are getting hot and you might need extra cooling...so more money

About Diversion:

- you install it on a USB stick. It takes about 50mgb. I use it with the largest filter there is,.about 1.2m domains blocked. That requires a swap file. You can choose between 256mgb and 2gb. I chose 2gb. My stick is 16gb on USB 3 so I don't care about space.
- the resources it consumes are about 100mb of RAM. I didn't notice any high CPU utilization. I am a madman when it comes to router throughput and if it affected it in any way, I would've uninstalled it instantly. I noticed about 3-4% CPU usage on the second core while browsing the web. The first core, the one that does NAT, seemed unaffected.


Piehole and diversion are doing the exact same thing. Piehole is more refined and more user friendly; it has more options and it's pleasing to the eye. In the end, it all comes down to the domain lists you are using. If you don't mind spending extra money on a raspberry+power source+sd card+a protection box+having an extra thing plugged in, then go for it. Raspberry offers the opportunity to install extra things on it. You can fiddle around more.

I wanted to buy a raspberry but in the end installed diversion. I am happy with my choise.

 

[dosborne]

I'd like to try Pi-Hole instead of Diversion (if not just to tinker with new stuff).

Anyone have any guides to setting this up and what equipment would I need?

Pi-Hole runs on pretty much any of the raspberry Pis last time I checked. My preference was the simple $10 RPI zero w. I added the usb sub board so basically could power it from the router. But in the end I wanted to run a bunch of other stuff so moved to a RPI 3b+ ($40) with dedicated power supply.

Pi-Hole setup takes a couple minutes only. https://pi-hole.net/
Many many many walkthroughs

if piehole dies, say goodbye to web functionality unless you know all websites IPs. The internet WILL function but no more address conversion, which is kinda like not having internet since you don't know websites by their IP
- you need money to buy a raspberry board, usually a good one or you will get low performance. Some boards are getting hot and you might need extra cooling...so more money

There are many way to setup and slow a fallback to keep things running (just with ads) if Pi-Hole fails.
Most, if not all, and certainly the v4 boards absolutely do NOT require additional cooling as the whole board is designed as a heatsink (unless you overclock). The older boards may benefit slightly from put a set of heatsinks on the processes (,cost $1 on eBay). Many (metal) v4 cases connect to act as heatsinks too.

To try it, all you need is a RPiZW, a microSD card and a usb power cable (use an available usb port or wall adapter). Definitely under $20 to try it out. The "expensive" option, but you get a lot more and can use for other things, can still be well under $100 for a kit (Pi, SD card, case, cables, power,etc). For comparitive pricing check this out https://www.buyapi.ca/product-category/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-boards/current-pi-boards/ (I'm not associated with them, just google for suppliers online or in your area).

For me, the cost is well worth having the functionality NOT on my router.

 

[Olivier L]

you can also use nextDNS to do adblocking system wide.

 

[carpov alexandru]

There are many ways on approaching dns ads blocking. You can even use an external dns service that blocks adds as your primary dns.

Yes, you can setup an alternate DNS as a backup if your primary piehole dns fails. You can even setup a dns service that blocks ads as a fallback.

Diversion has little to zero impact on the router. The only theoretical case I can think of is if you could somehow spam connect to hundreds of pages at the same time. Then I think the CPU will get a higher load since it will have to compare those hundreds of pages against a hostfile with 1.2m IPs, at the same time.

I heard the only raspberry that needs cooling is raspberry 4. There's even a joke running around about it. People used to ask what software did you install on your RPI; now they ask what cooling did you install on your RPI4.
A RPI3+ is 25-30euro second hand where I live. And that's without any cables, SD card, power cable/brick or case. Pretty expensive considering you can just add a dns blocking service to your router dns or install diversion with little impact and minimum effort.

Also, I understand the "no extra stuff on my router" part.

 

[dosborne]

I heard the only raspberry that needs cooling is raspberry 4

The rpi4 has MORE heat dissipation built in so requires less, or no, cooling.

 

[ColinTaylor]

The rpi4 has MORE heat dissipation built in so requires less, or no, cooling.

I'm not sure where you got that information but it's well documented that the RPi4 requires more cooling than the previous models. However, a recent firmware update significantly reduced its heat production.

https://www.hackster.io/news/newly-...r-draw-heat-output-on-all-models-6ab398270685

 

[carpov alexandru]

The rpi4 has MORE heat dissipation built in so requires less, or no, cooling.

quotes from the raspberry forums:

- I have a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 with the official case and at idle the temperature is over 80 degrees.
- I was surprised somewhat with the temperature which is showing 61c as it is just sitting idle.
- Room ambient temperature: 22 DegC, System idle: 21:09:14 up 17 min, 4 users, load average: 0.03, 0.03, 0.03 temp=74.0'C
- Pi4B in a PiBow Coupe case, sitting idle at 63.0°C
- Ref point - Pi 4, 4gb, no case - VLC playing 1080p video and browser open on bbc.co.uk - 68 degrees

Those above are just a few from the FIRST PAGE on a temp compaint threat started in raspberry forums. Here is the link:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=243500&sid=bff6599cb6fa4873ce64fbde592ae1ed

Not sure what the firmware upgrade did and how much lower the temps are now.

 

[dosborne]

Similar to temperature questions for Asus routers, the raspberry Pi is capable of handling the posted temperatures. I've had them since the 1a variant. I do have temperature controlled fans in my 3b+s but that was simply because I wanted a "project" and not a necessity. Having said that, I would at least get the metal rpi4 case that is designed to act as a further heatsink, but beyond that no cooling is actually required, unless you are overclocking.

 

[ColinTaylor]

... but beyond that no cooling is actually required, unless you are overclocking.

The evidence doesn't support that statement. Sure, the processor won't "burn out", but if you put any significant load on the processor (not overclocking) then the temperature rises and the CPU throttles down. This is clearly demonstrated in the first video in post #17.