What's the difference between Pihole and adblockers?

[MyName13]

If ads are served by connecting to certain advertising platforms and adblockers block connections to these servers and pihole does the same (block connections to these servers) then what's the difference between these two?None of them waste bandwidth on advertisements.

[Radium_Angel]

6 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

If ads are served by connecting to certain advertising platforms and adblockers block connections to these servers and pihole does the same (block connections to these servers) then what's the difference between these two?None of them waste bandwidth on advertisements.

One vs Many.

 

Adblockers are machine specific, whereas a pihole can attach to an entire network and block for many systems.

[397429721]

Two main differences:

 

 

1) A PiHole blocks adverts before your computer ever loads them, that means that in theory it should speed up site load time more than blocking the sites with an adblocker could (since the adblocker has to identify the ads and then block them from appearing which causes a small increase in load time).

 

2) The PiHole works across your entire network (if you've set it up fully) which means that you can have ads blocked on your phone, tablet or PC using a single device rather than installing an adblocker for each device (which some browsers/apps/programs might not even have the ability to do).

[MyName13]

1 minute ago, 397429721 said:

Two main differences:

 

 

1) A PiHole blocks adverts before your computer ever loads them, that means that in theory it should speed up site load time more than blocking the sites with an adblocker could (since the adblocker has to identify the ads and then block them from appearing which causes a small increase in load time).

But adblockers don't connect to advertising platforms too so nothing is loaded and no bandwidth is wasted.

[397429721]

Just now, MyName13 said:

But adblockers don't connect to advertising platforms too so nothing is loaded and no bandwidth is wasted.

Your browser still has to use it's processing power to block the adverts when the page is loaded, with a pihole the adverts aren't even acknowledged as a real website meaning that your browser never has to load that part of the page.

[MyName13]

12 minutes ago, 397429721 said:

Your browser still has to use it's processing power to block the adverts when the page is loaded, with a pihole the adverts aren't even acknowledged as a real website meaning that your browser never has to load that part of the page.

Ads aren't even part of the page, they are downloaded separately by connecting to well known advertisers.Are you trying to say that adblockers have to waste processing power on checking every link on the page to compare them to everything in its database while with pihole it's the Raspberry Pi that does the processing (comparing IP addresses of packet destinations to IP addresses of advertisers)?

[397429721]

Just now, MyName13 said:

Ads aren't even part of the page, they are downloaded separately by connecting to well known advertisers.Are you trying to say that adblockers have to waste processing power on checking every link on the page to compare them to everything in its database while with pihole it's the Raspberry Pi that does the processing (comparing IP addresses of packet destinations to IP addresses of advertisers)?

That's what im getting at, i haven't had my morning coffee yet.

 

 

[MyName13]

6 minutes ago, 397429721 said:

That's what im getting at, i haven't had my morning coffee yet.

 

 

Is pihole even worth it?You have to buy a device that costs at least 35$ + additional equipment (sd card, case, cables etc) just to save some processing power?Most people use phones so they have adblockers anyway because they are always on the move.

[dionkoffie]

6 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

Is pihole even worth it?You have to buy a device that costs at least 35$ + additional equipment (sd card, case, cables etc) just to save some processing power?Most people use phones so they have adblockers anyway because they are always on the move.

You can install Pi-Hole on other linux distros. 

[yamileon]

3 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

Is pihole even worth it?You have to buy a device that costs at least 35$ + additional equipment (sd card, case, cables etc) just to save some processing power?Most people use phones so they have adblockers anyway because they are always on the move.

pihole can run on pretty much anything after 2005 

 

if you want to try it out just load up a vm and try it out,

 

also it works great on the pizero w 

[MyName13]

14 minutes ago, dionkoffie said:

You can install Pi-Hole on other linux distros. 

 

12 minutes ago, yamileon said:

pihole can run on pretty much anything after 2005 

 

if you want to try it out just load up a vm and try it out,

 

also it works great on the pizero w 

My point is that pihole's cost efficiency is questionable since you spend more money than you save and it's useless to most people because they are always on the move with phones so they won't even be able to use pihole.

[NinJake]

Your OP wasn't asking about cost-efficiency.. it clearly asks what's the difference between Pi-Hole and adblockers. @Radium_Angel nailed the OP. But if you are now claiming that you're constantly on your phone and never in a wifi network, then Pi-Hole isn't an option at all.

 

However if you have a semi-decent machine you could also install Pi-Hole for a corporation, where this cost-efficiency is much greater. If you can use a Pi-Hole and stop ads for all 100 users at a company, that's much more effective than installing individual ad blockers on all 100 machines.

 

At my company we give users the option of at least 4 web browsers, so not only would I have to install ad blockers on 100 machines, I'd potentially have to install on 4 browsers per machine. So... 400 installations or 1 Pi-Hole?

[MyName13]

7 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Your OP wasn't asking about cost-efficiency.. it clearly asks what's the difference between Pi-Hole and adblockers. @Radium_Angel nailed the OP. But if you are now claiming that you're constantly on your phone and never in a wifi network, then Pi-Hole isn't an option at all.

 

However if you have a semi-decent machine you could also install Pi-Hole for a corporation, where this cost-efficiency is much greater. If you can use a Pi-Hole and stop ads for all 100 users at a company, that's much more effective than installing individual ad blockers on all 100 machines.

 

At my company we give users the option of at least 4 web browsers, so not only would I have to install ad blockers on 100 machines, I'd potentially have to install on 4 browsers per machine. So... 400 installations or 1 Pi-Hole?

I didn't consider companies.People say that pihole blocks ads at DNS level, so do adblocks.Since adblockers have to spend insignificant amount of processing power to block ads, it would make sense that these would be used to conserve batteries on mobile devices, however, mobile devices will be mobile anyway (either cellular or non pihole wifi networks) so I don't understand who would have use of pihole.Stationary (desktop) users have no use of it, neither do mobile users, why waste money on Raspberry pi, time on setting it all up and space?

[NinJake]

You can be mobile and still VPN through to a network utilizing a Pi-Hole though. So no matter where you are using cellular data you could still make use of the Pi-Hole.

 

For a single use though, it's fine to use Ad-Block. Some people like tinkering around with electronics, and 35$ for a raspberry Pi isn't like you're strictly spending 35 for Pi-Hole. You could use it for a slew of other things too.

[MyName13]

13 minutes ago, NinJake said:

You can be mobile and still VPN through to a network utilizing a Pi-Hole though. So no matter where you are using cellular data you could still make use of the Pi-Hole.

 

For a single use though, it's fine to use Ad-Block. Some people like tinkering around with electronics, and 35$ for a raspberry Pi isn't like you're strictly spending 35 for Pi-Hole. You could use it for a slew of other things too.

That still makes no sense, why go through all that trouble for almost no benefit (how would you even connect a phone through cellular network to your own VPN)?It's a nice project that I would want to make one day but it doesn't look useful at all.

[NinJake]

You don't need to have a phone to use a cellular network. We have police cars set up using a mobile hotspot utilizing a cellular network which connects to our VPN to stay on "our network/ domain".

 

You're also acting like 35 dollars is a huge investment.

[MyName13]

22 minutes ago, NinJake said:

You don't need to have a phone to use a cellular network. We have police cars set up using a mobile hotspot utilizing a cellular network which connects to our VPN to stay on "our network/ domain".

 

You're also acting like 35 dollars is a huge investment.

But we were talking about phones...35$ is a huge investment when you save maybe less than a cent of electricity.My point is that pihole is completely useless for most users.

[PsyOpWarlord]

I like Pi-Hole as it blocks ads on the network level on devices that don't generally have ad block software.  For instance the apps I use on all the Shield TV boxes I have in the house.  $35 was well worth the cost to stop ads in a lot of apps.