Vexz
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fedilink
31Y

Well, you will always need an upstream DNS server to surf the internet. Even your DNS server in your LAN needs an upstream DNS server or it can’t resolve domain names. This means whatever upstream DNS server you use you need trust it. Imo NextDNS is a good choice here.

But tbh NextDNS is the least good one. I use pihole with 1.1.1.1 upstream. I mean Nextdns could literally remove a “sponsor” from ur blacklist without ur knowledge. On local blocker not

Vexz
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fedilink
11Y

Yes, but they don’t. That’s where I have to criticize NextDNS. It feels like the devs just let it run but stopped development. They still even offer a block list called “Energized” which is dead with all entries removed since I think 2021. They just don’t care about updating anything. Don’t get me wrong because I still like NextDNS very much. It’s working completely fine as it is right now but it’s just not getting updates (anymore).

My problem with a Pi-hole is that it only works in your LAN. You can’t make use of it on your phone when you’re not at home. This is where NextDNS is better. You might wanna use NextDNS only on your mobile devices. 300,000 queries per month are free anyway. Or just use RethinkDNS which is completely free right now but you need their app to have a white- and blacklist.

Amju Wolf
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fedilink
31Y

You can usea VPN to connect to your home network and use your pihole there.

You can just host pihole on a cloud server and get it with that ;)

Vexz
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fedilink
11Y

True but a VPN connection drains your phone’s battery quite well. That’s why I never liked that option and prefer just using a DNS server with adblocking feature since it has 0 impact on your phone’s bettery life.

Amju Wolf
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fedilink
11Y

Not really as long as you use some VPN that’s not braindead stupid like OpenVPN. Wireguard is the perfect protocol, there’s almost no overhead since it doesn’t need keepalive packets or anything and there’s no handshake beyond the initial connection either.

Vexz
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fedilink
11Y

I’ve read reports of 3% to 10% battery usage with Wireguard on smartphones. To me even 1% would be too much but maybe that’s not the case for you. I don’t mind paying 2 bucks a month for a great product that is extremely simple to set up. If you prefer the way with Wireguard + Pi-hole than that’s of course fine. To each their own.

A DNS server can use root hints to resolve addresses rather than needing an upstream DNS server.

Vexz
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fedilink
1
edit-2
1Y

Root hints are DNS data stored in a DNS server. The root hints provide a list of preliminary resource records that can be used by the DNS service to locate other DNS servers that are authoritative for the root of the DNS domain namespace tree.

Source

This just means that your local DNS server doesn’t need to use the root DNS servers to resolve domain names but instead uses other authorative DNS servers in the internet to resolve your queries. So anyway you have to trust an upstream DNS server owned by someone else in the internet. There’s no way around it unless you use hyperlocal.

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