EDIT: Thanks so much guys! This was really helpful, and I didn’t imagine so many would help out!
Hey guys,
I’ve used PiHole for over a year now, and I really like it. I use it with WireGuard, so I always have my DNS blocker with me.
But I’ve wondered if I even have some good lists? I used some standard lists from a reddit thread when I set up my PiHole, and I’ve never looked at it since.
So what blocklists do you use? Something you can recommend?
Also, if you use Blocky or AdGuard, do you find it better than PiHole?
Nice try, Youtube dev. Better luck next time.
DNS blocking is the most unreliable way of blocking youtube ads you can imagine.
you could write a script to OCR your entire screen and click skip ad and it’d be more reliable than DNS blocking
I don’t think that works on my Samsung TV, or my partners iPad though. :)
Although not especially effective on the YouTube front, it actually increases network security just by blocking api access to ad networks on those kinds of IoT and walled garden devices. Ironically my partner loves it not for YouTube but apparently all her Chinese drama streaming websites. So when we go travel and she’s subjected to those ads she’s much more frustrated than when she’s at home lol.
So the little joke while not strictly true, is pretty true just if you just say ‘streaming content provider’.
I’ve had good luck with iSponsorBlockTV [1] for skipping/muting ads on our LG TV Youtube app and has Samsung Tizen on their supported list.
For my iPhone I do a combination of self-hosted Piped [2] exposed through Tailscale [3] with Yattee [4]. Both Piped and Yattee work with Sponsorblock and can be customized to see 0 ads.
Tailscale is useful since your phone/ipad/piped are on the same Tailnet regardless of location and you can stream from anywhere there’s an Internet connection.
You can also swap out components; eg Invidious instead of Piped or your own Wireguard setup instead of Tailscale.
Something to keep in mind:
Avoid using mirrored consolidated lists, if possible; it deprives the original list maintainer of visits (meaning they may be less inclined to keep it up to date!) https://firebog.net/
It depends a bit on what you want to accomplish, the threat model, the devices in use, and other topics. I think this is a good read: https://avoidthehack.com/best-pihole-blocklists
Some specific social blocklists: https://github.com/d43m0nhLInt3r/socialblocklists
