Pi-Hole filters out advertising and tracking for the entire network. How exactly it works and what alternatives there are is the topic of this week’s c’t uplink.
Advertising is obtrusive and tracking encroaches on privacy. While some endure both as a necessary evil, some users resort to digital self-defense. Setting up ad blockers for every computer is not only annoying, but also not possible for some end devices, such as smart TVs.
This is where network filters like Pi-Hole come in, which filter advertising and tracking for the entire network. In addition to the prominent advertising filter Pi-Hole, which originally emerged as a project for the small computer Raspberry Pi, there is also other similar software. For a series of articles in c’t, editor Peter Siering also looked at AdGuard Home and eBlocker in addition to Pi-Hole.
In the c’t uplink, in an interview with moderator Keywan Tonekaboni, he explains how the tools work, why they don’t filter all network traffic and where they differ. The c’t editor Niklas Dierking uses the Pi-Hole privately. He presents his setup and reports on his experiences with the network filter. Together, the two c’t editors give tips on using the ad blocker.
