The topic of Pi-hole is still the best free upgrade you can make to your home network is currently the subject of lively debate — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
We all want to have the fastest and most reliable experience possible when it comes to using the internet, and so we tend to chase the best possible upgrades. Wi-Fi 7, mesh networks, VLANs, and more are all things you’ll probably be looking into to improve your home network.
All of those things can be great, but the best upgrade you can make to your home network is free, and it’s called Pi-hole. In fact, I would recommend anyone with an available PC run this service on their network, because it makes things so much better.
Pi-hole’s primary function is handling DNS requests, and in a typical setup, you’ll have it forward the requests you care about to an upstream resolver, like Google’s, while using blocklists or individual rules to drop certain requests. The most common use for this is to drop connections to known ad servers, and this is a pretty big deal, especially nowadays.
Ads are necessary to support websites you care about, but many websites tend to go overboard with incorporating ads that are intrusive and simply ruin the experience for users, while others can lead to dangerous websites. And all of them involve having your internet activity tracked and sent off somewhere for your usage patterns to be analyzed so ads can be tailored to you.
One of the many things Pi-hole can be used for is to drop connection requests to known ad servers, and this is one of the big selling points of this tool. You can find multiple lists online that block known ad servers and by adding them to Pi-hole, you can make your internet experience much more peaceful. The best part about it is that it will work regardless of what device you’re using to browse the internet, so even your phone will benefit from it.
Dropping ad connections will not only reduce the visual noise on pages you visit, but it could improve the speed of your browsing since you’re not wasting time loading page elements you don’t need. Even your PC performance could benefit from loading pages without the extra burden of ads.
If you aren’t using your Raspberry Pi as a DNS server for your home network, there are plenty of reasons why you should
It’s worth noting, however, that video ads on YouTube and smart TV apps will likely still play. Those are baked into the same video stream, so they can’t be blocked easily without breaking the app as a whole.
Another very important use case for Pi-hole is its ability to block websites you don’t want to visit outright. Of course, this usually won’t be for you specifically, but maybe to prevent your children or someone else in your family from going on certain websites.
Of course, these include things like adult content, but you can also target things like gambling websites, certain kinds of social media, and so on. Much like ads, you can find lists online to block all kinds of potentially unwanted content, or you can add block rules manually if something you want to hide isn’t covered.
What’s especially great about Pi-hole is that not only does it block websites, but its UI also shows you blocked queries on a list so you can see when someone tried to access a specific website, as well as where that request came from. That way, if it’s something you think you need to talk about with your family, you can have more confidence trying to discuss it and potentially set up ground rules for allowing access to some of this content.
Another major thing you may want to manage is your smart home, and how your devices communicate with the internet. These are typically pretty opaque devices since they have no screen or an UI you can easily configure, so it’s not unheard of for them to send some kind of data to servers. You can try to restrict communication for these devices to enhance your home network security.
The best part about Pi-hole is that you can set it up on just about any device on your network. As a self-hosted service, it can run in Docker, so you can set it up on any computer in the house and just leave it running so it does its thing in the background.
Alternatively, if you have something like a Raspberry Pi at home, or an old computer, you can dedicate it to running Pi-hole, or even add a host of other services to it. My Pi-hole instance is set up inside a TrueNAS installation, which is running in a virtual machine inside Proxmox, and there are a lot more self-hosted services running alongside it. Even with all of that, this computer uses a very minimal amount of power. Any piece of hardware can run Pi-hole and not add a significant cost to your home.
You can even set up multiple devices with Pi-hole, so you have a backup if one of the devices loses power or needs a restart. It’s very versatile.
If you’ve got a free weekend, why not use it to complete one of these useful Raspberry Pi projects?
Of course, the concept of Pi-hole is what’s really great here, and it’s actually not the only option around if you want something that serves the same purpose. Recently, I bought a new router that includes AdGuard Home, a service that does essentially the same thing. In this case, because it’s built into the router, it’s actually a bit easier to set up, so it may make more sense to enable it than to set up a different device with Pi-hole.
Ultimately, what matters is using something to improve your internet experience, though Pi-hole is very lightweight and easy to set up, so I personally recommend it. Soon enough, you may even forget what it’s like to live without it.
Why it matters
News like this often changes audience expectations and competitors’ plans.
When one player makes a move, others usually react — it is worth reading the event in context.
What to look out for next
The full picture will become clear in time, but the headline already shows the dynamics of the industry.
Further statements and user reactions will add to the story.