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I've wanted to do this for some time, but everyone tells me there's no way to make it work without constantly updating the blacklist. Is it really such a hassle?
No lol It's so low maintenance that it took me about a month to figure out why it kept crashing. The answer was completely my fault as I forgot I gave the container running it only about 8gb of disk space and it filled up.
I only log into the console to check some metrics/verify no issues/run updates and I maybe do that once every 3 months. I don't have my pi-hole set up the same way as the basic tutorial but as far as lists go I just subscribed and forgot.
Worth noting my pihole is really only good for banner ads or ads that rely on DNS. YouTube ads require a clientside adblocker so far.
I forget about mine until I need to log into it to allow/block something, then I run my updates if I remember to think about it.
So like once every few months at best. Usually 2x/yr. Still works fine.
The blocklist automatically updates as long as you’re using maintained sources. It’s pretty easy tbh.
You can install community blacklists on it that it automatically downloads each day.
Here’s a popular set of lists that allows you to pick which lists you want. https://github.com/blocklistproject/Lists
Well, if you use big "aggressive" lists, you'll find that it blocks a lot including stuff you actually do want to see, then you have to comb through the recently blocked list and whitelist that which you actually need.
OR, you only use the oisd.nl list, which is supposed to keep everything you do wish to use in a working state. I have used it for years now I have yet to whitelist something. Once a year I update the pihole, but otherwise don't touch it.
You can start with a DNS blocker in the meantime. It’s just configuring your router to use an ad-blocking DNS server like Mullvad, Control D, or Aha for example. No additional hardware, tools, or setup required. Then when you’re ready, you can try setting up a pihole.