What's new

adblocking recommendation

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

While I like to trust a lot of github scripts this one is ringing alarm bells. Don't trust it - I only scored 54% and I hardly see any ads with diversion.
In case anyone else is concerned the test was via a virtual machine that I've just wiped. Even if it's not malicious I doubt the accuracy and method.
 
I wouldn't test anything unless I was having problems. I believe testing an adblocker when it's working fine is futile. There's so many tests out there, not just for ads, that totally inflate the numbers to draw people into parting with their hard-earned for something equally useless to cure 'the problem'.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
 
I guess I am trying to find out why my setup doesn't seem to be too effective, and wondering if switching to something else will fix, or maybe should start diagnosing the current.
 
Best to put this in the Add-ons forum and find out why you're having problems first. My diversion is working as good as the day I first discovered it.
 
What does everyone here prefer for adblocking? Diversion, or adguard?
I have used diversion for a while, but there seem to be lots of ads coming through and checking this test (https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html) shows I only block about 50%. I'd like to start getting more stuff blocked.

I have never really tried diversion. I used it for a short period before AdGuard went viable and then i jumped on AdGuard.

I would recommend AdGuard with the following blocklists.

The default AdGuard blocklist that is pre chosen.
1host light
OISD big list
Hagezi black and white
Language blocklist, in my case i used Swedish blocklist.
 
Using the default adguard block lists, I score 80%. I've tried Diversion and AdGuard and Diversion with very large lists will run out of CPU and will cause clients to drop off until you reset the router. The biggest challenge I had with Diversion is that I couldn't find a sweet spot of lists that would simultaneously block ads but also allow for things to just work. Using the medium or large default in Diversion resulted in hours of tracking down source and destination IPs to have Roku apps like TLC Channel or NBC sports to load. Slickdeals redirects never worked and required adding to the white list. It was a constant battle of getting items added to what became an annoying long whitelist. I've found that the OOB adguard list works pretty well. I see a few ads here and there but by and large, they are gone and things work. Your tolerance (and family) for playing with whitelists may be more than mine so YMMV with this advice.

I will say that AGH is rather memory intensive. There are tweaks you should make with swappiness and ensuring you have enough free memory by limiting other items you are running. I can't imagine running it on a 512Mb router but I know others have and do run it.
 
What does everyone here prefer for adblocking?

I don't do adblocking on the router. My family members are free to chose what they want to see. We all use uBlock Origin - the best adblocker not destroying pages and successfully removing YouTube ads. Disabling is one click as well as per site adblocking. There is no router equivalent.
 
I dropped out from custom firmware (i want automatically updates) and run the adblocking at nextdns.io. 25euro a year and i can forget about the whole thing.

I've been running it for a week or so. The latency is good and the blocking aswell.

Nerding around is fun but also exhausting.
 
Not sure if there is an adguard version but if you're looking at block lists, the Firebog lists work pretty well for a combination of ad-blocking, malware and telemetry. (For those using Pi-Hole you can automate list updates from Firebog with https://github.com/jacklul/pihole-updatelists.)

The telemetry side of things throws up some interesting results - the TV actually getting itself blocked by Pi-Hole occasionally for excessive requests when it can't phone home!
 
What does everyone here prefer for adblocking? Diversion, or adguard?
I have used diversion for a while, but there seem to be lots of ads coming through and checking this test (https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html) shows I only block about 50%. I'd like to start getting more stuff blocked.
I generally just click on ads when I see them, by then they have made me surrender all my better judgement and there is no hope of return.
 
Unbound with build-in ad-block (default block list) with dns firewall works fine. On desktop and mobile browsers uBlock Origin add-on
 
Unbound with build-in ad-block (default block list) with dns firewall works fine. On desktop and mobile browsers uBlock Origin add-on
Let's not forget about the trusty ol'firewall as well. I am sure if you throw some of these lists at skynet, it might block "some" ads as well. However, you might find that you block some legitimate services as well, and that adservers don't always keep the same IP address for very long.....

 
Last edited:
What does everyone here prefer for adblocking? Diversion, or adguard?
I have used diversion for a while, but there seem to be lots of ads coming through and checking this test (https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html) shows I only block about 50%. I'd like to start getting more stuff blocked.
Here is my test results. I use three Piholes and a Skynet. I am not sure how many are blocked by Pihole and how many are blocked by Skynet, but I am pretty sure it is a combination of the two.

Test done without UblockOrigin:

1686202673638.png

1686202706913.png

1686202788466.png

1686202829450.png

1686202754906.png


@Tech9 No Ublock Origin browser extension either.
 
Last edited:
Unbound with build-in ad-block (default block list) with dns firewall works fine. On desktop and mobile browsers uBlock Origin add-on

How do you get ublock origin on mobile browser?
Are you running a rooted ROM for that?
 
This is my result on my cellphone using NextDNS with these filters.

OISD
1Hosts (Lite)
NextDNS Blocklist for ads and trackers
AdGuard DNS filter
AdGuard Mobile Ads filter
Frellwit's Swedish Hosts File
HaGeZi - Multi NORMAL
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20230608-120940.png
    Screenshot_20230608-120940.png
    53.6 KB · Views: 70
This is my result on my cellphone using NextDNS with these filters.

OISD
1Hosts (Lite)
NextDNS Blocklist for ads and trackers
AdGuard DNS filter
AdGuard Mobile Ads filter
Frellwit's Swedish Hosts File
HaGeZi - Multi NORMAL
OISD seems unnecessary because it’s included in HaGezi Multi Normal
 

Similar threads

Latest threads

Support SNBForums w/ Amazon

If you'd like to support SNBForums, just use this link and buy anything on Amazon. Thanks!

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top