Diversion Diversion 5.1.3 - the Router Ad-Blocker, May 09, 2024

[thelonelycoder]

Okay, new experimental feature then. It is a new experimental feature to endure YouTube ads all the time? Okay, the experiment is over. Now we go back to No youtube ads.

There will be no new YouTube Video ads blocking feature in Diversion. 90% of the users complained it did not work while the rest asserted it did work.

From my own experience, it causes more trouble than benefits. And never worked right. It is impossible to block video ads consistent. Google has about a thousand S/W engineers that work against you. No DNS based ad blocker can filter out random subdomains that serve true content and others that serve video ads from the same domain.
I will no longer discuss this, there are multiple threads that discuss it - be it for Diversion, Pi-Hole or other similar ad blockers. The conclusion is for all the same.

 

[kuki68ster]

Okay, new experimental feature then. It is a new experimental feature to endure YouTube ads all the time? Okay, the experiment is over. Now we go back to No Youtube ads.

There is the Ublock option, Albania's VPN option or Youtube premium sharing option...Youtube blocking was always miss and hit...

 

[Ravenbak]

There is the Ublock option, Albania's VPN option or Youtube premium sharing option...Youtube blocking was always miss and hit...

I used to use ublock origin and it was doing great ,am going back to install this extension.
hope in the future there will be something similar for Asus routers.
Thanks

 

[Jumpstarter]

There will be no new YouTube Video ads blocking feature in Diversion. 90% of the users complained it did not work while the rest asserted it did work.

From my own experience, it causes more trouble than benefits. And never worked right. It is impossible to block video ads consistent. Google has about a thousand S/W engineers that work against you. No DNS based ad blocker can filter out random subdomains that serve true content and others that serve video ads from the same domain.
I will no longer discuss this, there are multiple threads that discuss it - be it for Diversion, Pi-Hole or other similar ad blockers. The conclusion is for all the same.

While I hear everyone's pleas for no Youtube adblock, I still wonder who they have bought off. Instead of paying for a Youtube subscription, I'd rather pay for a diversion subscription that blocked Youtube ads.

 

[thelonelycoder]

While I hear everyone's pleas for no Youtube adblock, I still wonder who they have bought off. Instead of paying for a Youtube subscription, I'd rather pay for a diversion subscription that blocked Youtube ads.

To break my rule and briefly get out of my slumber, I would happily provide such a service for free if I had one.
To state: I did not get paid to remove it nor was I ever contacted by them. Diversion is small potato‘s for them.

 

[danlat1415]

Are there any block lists to block advert on UK TV streaming app, such as ITV X, All 4, My 5, Discovery Plus etc?
Some apps have about 10 adverts at a time and a lot are repeated which is very annoying.

 

[Treadler]

Are there any block lists to block advert on UK TV streaming app, such as ITV X, All 4, My 5, Discovery Plus etc?
Some apps have about 10 adverts at a time and a lot are repeated which is very annoying.

Perhaps try large/aggressive lists, eg, from the likes of Hagezi, or 1hosts, & see how you go.
You might find they break your streaming apps, or, they might work.

 

[martinr]

Are there any block lists to block advert on UK TV streaming app, such as ITV X, All 4, My 5, Discovery Plus etc?
Some apps have about 10 adverts at a time and a lot are repeated which is very annoying.

I don’t often watch those channels (or much tv) at all; however, there were a couple of series my wife wanted to watch on ITVX. I was really surprised not to see a single ad in any of the episodes, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I now just opened a My5 programme at random and didn’t see any opening ads, though on All4, I did see a trailer for Paramount Plus and the Hyundai sponsorship bit at the start of a couple of films I tested. (I’m far more interested in protection from malicious sites rather than ads, so I didn’t delve deeper.)

My blocklists are the big.oisd.nl/dnsmasq2 and the hagezi…../dnsmasq/pro.txt. I know there’s a lot of duplication between the 2. But now you’ve brought it up, I’d be interested to know if you, too, find this works, or maybe I just got lucky. I did wonder if, because the ITVX series was old, I was being allowed to watch ad-free, but then I realised I was being naïve, and the world just isn’t that altruistic.

Please tell me how you get on.

 

[danlat1415]

I don’t often watch those channels (or much tv) at all; however, there were a couple of series my wife wanted to watch on ITVX. I was really surprised not to see a single ad in any of the episodes, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I now just opened a My5 programme at random and didn’t see any opening ads, though on All4, I did see a trailer for Paramount Plus and the Hyundai sponsorship bit at the start of a couple of films I tested. (I’m far more interested in protection from malicious sites rather than ads, so I didn’t delve deeper.)

My blocklists are the big.oisd.nl/dnsmasq2 and the hagezi…../dnsmasq/pro.txt. I know there’s a lot of duplication between the 2. But now you’ve brought it up, I’d be interested to know if you, too, find this works, or maybe I just got lucky. I did wonder if, because the ITVX series was old, I was being allowed to watch ad-free, but then I realised I was being naïve, and the world just isn’t that altruistic.

Please tell me how you get on.

Thanks for your suggestion.

I already have big.oisd.nl/dnsmasq2 set as default - so that doesn't block the streaming TV adverts.
I've added hagezi/dns-blocklist/pro txt as secondary, so will see how it gets on.
With 357,318 blocked domains, I would hope it at least helps.


Update:
I've just been informed by my wife (after telling her I'm testing new ad-block scripts and to keep an eye on it) that we have 2 Apple TV 4K boxes (both identical models on the same firmware). One is using a wired connection as it's close to the router, and the bedroom one is using WiFi.
She now tells me that the wired connection box has no adverts, but the exact same box using a WiFi connection is full of streaming adverts?? (So maybe the default large list was already sufficient)

I don't know what's going on with that, as diversion isn't set up for IP specific devices and I can test general ad-blocking on my phone and it's working fine.
I'm going to factory wipe the Apple TV 4K box that's currently set as WiFi and reload it all and see if it makes any difference.

I don't think it's the router (AX86U Pro) as I've factory reset it a few times after a few different updates.

 

[Treadler]

I don’t often watch those channels (or much tv) at all; however, there were a couple of series my wife wanted to watch on ITVX. I was really surprised not to see a single ad in any of the episodes, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I now just opened a My5 programme at random and didn’t see any opening ads, though on All4, I did see a trailer for Paramount Plus and the Hyundai sponsorship bit at the start of a couple of films I tested. (I’m far more interested in protection from malicious sites rather than ads, so I didn’t delve deeper.)

My blocklists are the big.oisd.nl/dnsmasq2 and the hagezi…../dnsmasq/pro.txt. I know there’s a lot of duplication between the 2. But now you’ve brought it up, I’d be interested to know if you, too, find this works, or maybe I just got lucky. I did wonder if, because the ITVX series was old, I was being allowed to watch ad-free, but then I realised I was being naïve, and the world just isn’t that altruistic.

Please tell me how you get on.

I ‘think’ Diversion is clever enough to ignore duplicates?

 

[martinr]

I ‘think’ Diversion is clever enough to ignore duplicates?

I’m sure it is: I thought it went through, ripping out duplicates to make a consolidated list during its ‘initialisation‘ process, though I might be getting mixed up with a Raspberry Pi setup I ran before I switched to Diversion‘s predecessor, Absolution.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I’m sure it is: I thought it went through, ripping out duplicates to make a consolidated list during its ‘initialisation‘ process, though I might be getting mixed up with a Raspberry Pi setup I ran before I switched to Diversion‘s predecessor, Absolution.

sort -u is the command for unique. Not a single duplicate left. That’s what I do ever since it all started back then: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/adblocking-with-combined-hosts-file.15309/

 

[Viktor Jaep]

My blocklists are the big.oisd.nl/dnsmasq2 and the hagezi…../dnsmasq/pro.txt. I know there’s a lot of duplication between the 2. But now you’ve brought it up, I’d be interested to know if you, too, find this works, or maybe I just got lucky. I did wonder if, because the ITVX series was old, I was being allowed to watch ad-free, but then I realised I was being naïve, and the world just isn’t that altruistic.

Please tell me how you get on.

I was using these two... but I've had to back off to the pre-set "medium" setting, which uses the small.oisd.nl list. For some reason, too many legit websites were being blocked for the family, and was creating more hassle for me to keep them appeased than it was to just back off on the list agressiveness.

 

[Treadler]

I was using these two... but I've had to back off to the pre-set "medium" setting, which uses the small.oisd.nl list. For some reason, too many legit websites were being blocked for the family, and was creating more hassle for me to keep them appeased than it was to just back off on the list agressiveness.

This is the way, any list that causes grief is immediately downsized.

 

[visortgw]

I was using these two... but I've had to back off to the pre-set "medium" setting, which uses the small.oisd.nl list. For some reason, too many legit websites were being blocked for the family, and was creating more hassle for me to keep them appeased than it was to just back off on the list agressiveness.

Interesting. I have extremely few blocked legitimate sites with the large oisd list with the ten (10) networks that i manage. I find more false positives with Skynet, but still a very small number.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Interesting. I have extremely few blocked legitimate sites with the large oisd list with the ten (10) networks that i manage. I find more false positives with Skynet, but still a very small number.

I may give it another go and not tell the fam... just to make sure it wasn't a fluke with some of the earlier versions of Diversion 5.0.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I may give it another go and not tell the fam... just to make sure it wasn't a fluke with some of the earlier versions of Diversion 5.0.

Use the large list, no additional list. It’s maintainer is very diligent not to block acces to legitimate websites. That‘s the reason I selected his small list as the new default.

 

[jsbeddow]

Use the large list, no additional list. It’s maintainer is very diligent not to block acces to legitimate websites. That‘s the reason I selected his small list as the new default.

I was close to replying in similar manner, as that was both my understanding as well as my own experience with the large version of the oisd list: no false positives here (in the admittedly small sample size test of just my own household). Glad to hear that perhaps other factors may have contributed to the negative experience of Victor Jaep.

 

[martinr]

Thanks for your suggestion.

I already have big.oisd.nl/dnsmasq2 set as default - so that doesn't block the streaming TV adverts.
I've added hagezi/dns-blocklist/pro txt as secondary, so will see how it gets on.
With 357,318 blocked domains, I would hope it at least helps.


Update:
I've just been informed by my wife (after telling her I'm testing new ad-block scripts and to keep an eye on it) that we have 2 Apple TV 4K boxes (both identical models on the same firmware). One is using a wired connection as it's close to the router, and the bedroom one is using WiFi.
She now tells me that the wired connection box has no adverts, but the exact same box using a WiFi connection is full of streaming adverts?? (So maybe the default large list was already sufficient)

I don't know what's going on with that, as diversion isn't set up for IP specific devices and I can test general ad-blocking on my phone and it's working fine.
I'm going to factory wipe the Apple TV 4K box that's currently set as WiFi and reload it all and see if it makes any difference.

I don't think it's the router (AX86U Pro) as I've factory reset it a few times after a few different updates.

Please report back if you get to the bottom of this. (In a way, I hope the problem is still there, otherwise we’ll never know what it was.)

You don’t have the box on a wireless Guest network that’s using a different blocklist?

Every setting on the wireless box is identical to that on the ethernet-connected box?

Do these Apple TV boxes have a Private Relay option, like the iPhone has? If you have Private Relay set on the iPhone, you’ll bypass Diversion.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/adguard.87449/post-874906

And if the problem is still there, to aid your troubleshooting, swap the boxes and see if the previously-ethernet-connected box now has the problem ie is the problem in the box or in the network.

 

[JimB66]

Hi All,

I recently upgraded my RT-AC68U to the RT-AX86U Pro, and added Diversion as one of my first addons. Seems to working great, thanks.

My question has to do with how, or if, Diversion works/interacts with DNS Director. Does DNS Director need to be used to get full benefit of Diversion? I've done some searching, and even enabled it to what I thought it should be configured, but didn't really notice any difference. I'm not using any of the pre-packaged block lists in DNS Director (obviously), so not sure if it's anything I need to enable.

Feel free to just point to a resource or explanation, I don't doubt I missed something in my research (which usually happened late at night ).

Thanks!