Today’s tech advice: If you aren’t running Pi-hole, you should be.
Pi-hole is a locally run, open source, DNS sinkhole. It blocks ads and trackers. It also will provide some measure of improved network performance for delivering DNS results stored locally. It also prevents your ISP from collecting your DNS queries to sell for marketing purposes.
Seriously, you shouldn’t be using the DNS provided by your ISP. I suggesting using a non-tracking DNS, such as Cloudflare (1.1.1.1). You can configure Pi-hole to use Cloudflare or a number of other external DNS options. On an ‘average’ day, at least 30% of the DNS calls on my home network are serviced locally by Pi-hole and don’t leave the building.
You will also see a performance increase due to your browser not servicing the massive amounts of ads that Pi-hole will block.
Pi-hole also filters out ‘malicious’ domains, some of which will pop up from a hijacked ad on another site. This provides a level of security against malware and spyware. Although, many people intentionally log into spyware sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Plus various IoT devices like to phone home with usage data and anything else they can sniff. Roku and Sonos devices are constantly in the blocked list for my instance of Pi-hole.
It’s fairly easy to set up. I ran it on an old system running Linux for years. Recently moved to a Raspberry Pi 4. It will take some basic Linux skills to do that. Worth it if you want a dedicated local DNS with a static IP address. You can also pick up a Pi 4 or 5 for around $100, so it’s a fairly low cost option.
There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to set up and enhance Pi-Hole. I’ll list some interesting ones later.
Filed under: cybersecurity, Geek Skills | Tagged: cybersecurity, LINUX, networking | Leave a comment »
Urbin Technology 