[wkyleg]

In my experience Pi hole is a very worthwhile investment. People who used my internet when I had one would remark how much faster it was. Everything in general seems faster, even things that you wouldn't think of. I typically use Brave for browsing which has good ad blocking capabilities, but this adds a whole additional layer.

The only reason I don't use one now is that I travel a lot more so it's irrelevant, and I have to work enough on tools with Google/Vercel/other analytics that it is just very inconvenient.

Regarding smart TVs, I have found that it's better to just use an Apple TV or Kodi box and never connect to them internet though. Having said, I gave my TV away because I never used it, so this might not be as up to date. A Pi hole will block ads on smart TVs though.

[Salgat]

I used to love pihole, but it seems like it's more trouble than it's worth now. Advertisers have wised up and will use the same subdomain for both content and ads. I've also had issues with normal website functionality being broken due to pihole which isn't fun for my wife. It seems mostly useful for blocking background traffic on smart devices, not so much for ads.

[_chris_]

Wouldn’t a smart tv do something ... smarter than just using the default dns given to it by the network?

I’m not up to speed on this stuff but I thought pihole only blocked the simplest stuff from devices that play nice?

[dark-star]

> Wouldn’t a smart tv do something ... smarter than just using the default dns given to it by the network?

It could certainly try... but usually you would block that in your firewall. Fixed DNS servers or fixed server IP addresses are tricky because if you ever need to change them, you can't, because you'd need to update the hardware (which you can't since it sits behind a firewall).

It could try to use things like Google's DNS server, but that is easily blocked in your router.

Not a lot that could be done except trusting your (internal) DNS server...

[netsharc]

Why should the programmers of the TV's OS look for edge cases, and do you think the TV makers would give them budget for that? For 90+% of users the standard config of trusting the DHCP server will work fine, and the Pi-Hole users will probably not give them money anyway, and will be dedicated to defeat their workarounds...

[natebc]

I've been worried about companies that make software like this (applications with embedded telemetry or advertisements) starting to do their on DoH style lookups.

I don't KNOW of any doing it but I can't imagine it'd be too hard for them to do.

[Shadowmist]

I had an Apple TV connected to a TCL Roku TV and the TV was analyzing video frames from the AppleTV to popup ads suggesting to watch the same content on other streaming services.