An Exercise Program for the Fat Web

[zeveb]

> It's kind of scary how powerful DNS can be, isn't it?

And that, I think, is why we see a push for DNS-over-HTTPS and other things: because eventually Google (and other device manufacturers) will only use the network-provided DNS servers to find their DNS servers. And of course your device will only use Google's servers, for your security of course.

You might think that sounds crazy, but we've already seen it come to pass: Android apps will now ignore owner-supplied root certs. This means that the device owner cannot inspect HTTPS traffic sent by his own device.

The endgame is that we're not really owners of our own computing devices, but simply renters of media-consumption appliances.

[nixpulvis]

If I don't own my technology, I sadly own very little. It makes me really sad.

[bryanlarsen]

Switching to Firefox costs $0 and works on every network, not just your home net.

[throwmeback]

It's also hella buggy on macOS for me, which is irritating - my browser is the only thing I need to work 100% of the time. As much as I'd like to reduce Google's browser monopoly, I consciously choose to make this one exception.

[oweiler]

Only if you don't value your time. This would at least require me to search for equivalent plugins.

[fenwick67]

> Eye/o GmbH owns AdBlock and uBlock

Wow, I didn't realize the same company that owns Adblock also owns uBlock.org (but not ublock origin)

[Crinus]

Doesn't DNS over HTTPS and HSTS bypass pihole?

(isn't it funny how every single "modern web security" feature, from DNS over HTTPS, to HSTS even to HTTPS itself always ends up with someone giving up control to 3rd parties yet this is always dismissed and pushed through insane amounts of peer pressure - usually by people who have vested interests in those 3rd parties - because 'security'?)

[kasey_junk]

My network is setup so local dns goes to the pi-hole which uses dns over https.

[detaro]

DNS over HTTPS against a server you can't choose would do so, yes.

[thedanbob]

So does simply using a different DNS server than the network supplies, unless you’re blocking port 53.

[eswat]

Pi-Hole is a great tool, just make sure to be exhaustive in your testing to see if it will break any services you depend on.

When I unboxed my old Kindle one day I couldn’t get syncing to work and had no idea why for several days until I tried adding a pass-through filter for Amazon in Pi-Hole, which was the culprit.

[Theodores]

I am interested in what happens when you get to a website that insists you turn off your ad blocker. What happens with Pi Hole?

Also I would prefer to just run Privoxy as I have Ubuntu running and can just use that instead of some extra gadget. What happens with Privoxy if you are getting a turn off ad blocker message?

Currently I use 'cat block' or the 'EFF' blocker, depending on what computer I am on, those give you an option to turn off your ad blocker which I find myself doing from time to time, it would be nice to have this option with Privoxy.

[deftnerd]

There is a firefox extension you can use to temporarily disable the PiHole blocking on your network with one click so you don't have to visit your PiHole webpage and do it manually.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/switch-pi-hol...

[theandrewbailey]

You can disable blocking temporarily (a few seconds to a few minutes) in the PiHole dashboard.

[nkrisc]

In addition to the temporary disable option available at /admin on your pi-hole, you can whitelist domains if you really need to access them and you can't with blocking.