Diversion Diversion - the Router Ad-Blocker

[thelonelycoder]

I dropped dropped my lists to around 600k domains and the issue still returned. I took out the duplicate lists you suggested and re-enabled another one I had so im still around 600k domains but don't have the duplicates. Any other suggestions? Its getting to the point where i'm either going to create a script that restarts Diversion every other day or uninstall. Its that frustrating.

Again, the Syslog entries would be interesting for the period when dnsmasq or your USB device reports an error.

 

[thelonelycoder]

As a side note, I noticed that the DC script in AMTM is running a fat32 check on my USB drive according to the logs. The usb drive is Ext2, so I disabled that. Do you know why that is the case?

That's a wrongly formatted device. Use real Linux/Unix system to format the device.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Lovely to see face behind the pseudonym, Martin. And to see what you’ve been up to as well.
Happy Christmas and 2019, and thanks again for all your hard work keeping us all safe and sound.

Glad to be of service. And to keep it diverse: Season's greetings!

 

[thelonelycoder]

So far it seems to be working OK. Ive been staying around 50% ram usage now. Is there really any benefit to using the ds settings?

If you know what you're doing by understanding all of the options and the limitation of your router, then by all means go ahead and use it. If not, don't bother, the default settings are generally best for your router.
Exhaustive Dnsmasq documentation is here: http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/dnsmasq-man.html

 

[thelonelycoder]

I recently made this post: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/is-total-youtube-ad-blocking-possible-at-the-router-level.53988/

.... how effective is Diversion (coupled with Skynet, Pixel) at blocking YouTube ads network wide?

Not very effective. Diversion blocks by domain on the router. If YouTube ads are served from the same domain as the actual video then there's not much a router based ad-blocker can do.
In addition to that, YT probably uses some smart code in their Java scripts to obfuscate the domains or IPs they use to pull the ads.

Understand that the router never sees the source code of a rendered webpage, only the requested domain. In-Browser ad-blockers can act on the rendered webpage.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Did you do any Slick Rock biking while in Moab?
btw. looking forward to 4.06

What are your thoughts about the Asus RT-AX88U you have. I'd love to get one, but as others point out, at this stage, there aren't any devices equipped with AX (so I've been told).

 

[Adamm]

What are your thoughts about the Asus RT-AX88U you have. I'd love to get one, but as others point out, at this stage, there aren't any devices equipped with AX (so I've been told).

160MHz channels are nice (real world throughput in my testing was around 1.24 Gbits/sec on a 1.7Gbps linkrate), but coming from an AC86U you won't see a huge improvement in other areas until there are AX clients.

 

[Skeptical.me]

160MHz channels are nice (real world throughput in my testing was around 1.24 Gbits/sec on a 1.7Gbps linkrate), but coming from an AC86U you won't see a huge improvement in other areas until there are AX clients.

That's what I thought. Still I love having the latest stuff, a silly impulse of mine. I look forward to that bandwidth sometime, however.


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[Mutzli]

What are your thoughts about the Asus RT-AX88U you have. I'd love to get one, but as others point out, at this stage, there aren't any devices equipped with AX (so I've been told).

I really like the router so far. I got one because my AC88-U literally burned out a couple of weeks ago. Even though there are no AX (WiFi6) devices available yet I still decided to go for it. The additional memory and four core SoC are well worth the upgrade. The router works fine so far with the latest Merlin firmware. After installing and running dnsmasq, diversion, entware, pixelserv and skydrive the router still shows 300+MB of RAM free.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I dropped dropped my lists to around 600k domains and the issue still returned. I took out the duplicate lists you suggested and re-enabled another one I had so im still around 600k domains but don't have the duplicates. Any other suggestions? Its getting to the point where i'm either going to create a script that restarts Diversion every other day or uninstall. Its that frustrating.

If that would help, I can add an option to auto-restart Diversion daily/weekly one hour after the set blocking file update hour.

 

[truglodite]

If I understand your network correctly, then it looks like this:
ISP --> Asus Router with Diversion --> VPN device
VPN device connects directly through a tunnel to Google VPN, circumventing the router.
Ask Googleto add Diversion on their servers...

I just e-mailed Google tech support about adding Diversion to their servers. I'm still waiting for a response... LOL!

Cheers

 

[user1085]

The highlighted follow dnsmasq is great! In addition is it possible to add these two features?

1. Highlight the filtered by term log as well?
   
2. Remove a specific domain from filtered log? eg. while following dns requests from my Roku, cooper.roku.com domain is blocked 10s of times every second. Therefore it pollutes the filtered log making it really really hard to observe if there were other domains blocked why trying to debug why a channel doesn't load

 

[Skeptical.me]

I really like the router so far. I got one because my AC88-U literally burned out a couple of weeks ago. Even though there are no AX (WiFi6) devices available yet I still decided to go for it. The additional memory and four core SoC are well worth the upgrade. The router works fine so far with the latest Merlin firmware. After installing and running dnsmasq, diversion, entware, pixelserv and skydrive the router still shows 300+MB of RAM free.

View attachment 15602

Now you've tempted me to buy one after Christmas lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Jim McCusker]

Simple question, what do the 't', 'w', and 'n' metrics in green background represent? Couldn't find them defined anywhere on the website.

And, thank you for such a great product. It's working great on my AC68P and blocking lots of ads. I'm only finding a couple ads showing up on Cnet.com so far.

--Jim

 

[thelonelycoder]

Simple question, what do the 't', 'w', and 'n' metrics in green background represent? Couldn't find them defined anywhere on the website.

And, thank you for such a great product. It's working great on my AC68P and blocking lots of ads. I'm only finding a couple ads showing up on Cnet.com so far.

--Jim

About time to complete the documentation on the website, huh?
Total ads blocked, blocked this week since last blocking file update, newly counted ads since last count.
Total, Week, New.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Merry Christmas from Australia, eat, drink and be merry.

 

[thelonelycoder]

As briefly mentioned on Twitter, a beta feature is coming with the upcoming Diversion 4.0.6!

Help me name that feature, I am not happy with '6. Enable second blocking file'.

What does it do?
When fs (Blocking file fast switch) is enabled, the menu to activate the secondary blocking file is enabled, as shown here:

Once enabled, it starts a second Dnsmasq instance with the secondary blocking file active, listening on a virtual IP. Clients can then be directed through LAN/DNSFilter to use this IP as the Custom DNS.
This is helpful for those having a nagging partner or children with demands that certain websites do not work.
This is a permanent solution instead of using fs to temporarily use a (presumably smaller) blocking file.
fs still works and switches blocking files on the primary Dnsmasq instance, while the second Dnsmasq instance remains on the secondary blocking file.

ETA for v4.0.6 is this year.

 

[Jack Yaz]

As briefly mentioned on Twitter, a beta feature is coming with the upcoming Diversion 4.0.6!

Help me name that feature, I am not happy with '6. Enable second blocking file'.

What does it do?
When fs (Blocking file fast switch) is enabled, the menu to activate the secondary blocking file is enabled, as shown here:

Once enabled, it starts a second Dnsmasq instance with the secondary blocking file active, listening on a virtual IP. Clients can then be directed through LAN/DNSFilter to use this IP as the Custom DNS.
This is helpful for those having a nagging partner or children with demands that certain websites do not work.
This is a permanent solution instead of using fs to temporarily use a (presumably smaller) blocking file.
fs still works and switches blocking files on the primary Dnsmasq instance, while the second Dnsmasq instance remains on the secondary blocking file.

ETA for v4.0.6 is this year.

I suppose the main question I have is how does that interact with dnsmasq.conf.add and dnsmasq.postconf? Unless those only apply to the "service" version run by the router?

 

[thelonelycoder]

I suppose the main question I have is how does that interact with dnsmasq.conf.add and dnsmasq.postconf? Unless those only apply to the "service" version run by the router?

The second Dnsmasq instance is unaffected by the /jffs/ directives, it uses its own dnsmasq.conf file.

 

[Jack Yaz]

The second Dnsmasq instance is unaffected by the /jffs/ directives, it uses its own dnsmasq.conf file.

Awesome! I'll be interested to see how it works when it's finished!