Ad blockers, what should I use?

[beachBOYken]

I just got myself a new MacBook Pro 14 and currently I'm not using any ad blocker, I did have Wipr on my iMac, which was fine, but is there anything better?

People mention Pihole, but I have no clue what I need or how that works.

I have an Eero mesh network.

I don't want anything that may slow my internet down or hog resources.

I also heard of something called NextDNS which is like a cloud based service.

Preferably wanted something free that is not a resource hogger, does its job discreetly.

 

[HACO]

You can use the Adguard public DNS. You can set it up both at router level or at device level. Don't install the app, go to method 2 and set it up manually so it wouldn't run anything in the background.

AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server

Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific content on the Internet.

adguard-dns.io

 

[beachBOYken]

You can use the Adguard public DNS. You can set it up both at router level or at device level. Don't install the app, go to method 2 and set it up manually so it wouldn't run anything in the background.

AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server

Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific content on the Internet.

adguard-dns.io

So if I try that will method 2 install just on my Mac?

Is it easy to remove if I have issues with it.


How does this compare to NextDNS.

 

[beachBOYken]

Adguard for mac
Adguard Home

The latter looks a little more finicky to install on Mac.

Anyone used Adguard for Mac? is it the same as in that link you provided @HACO in method 1?

For basic ad blocking I guess the DNS method is best still and I can easily remove if I have issues with it.

 

[MrRockliffe]

Adguard for mac
Adguard Home

The latter looks a little more finicky to install on Mac.

Anyone used Adguard for Mac? is it the same as in that link you provided @HACO in method 1?

For basic ad blocking I guess the DNS method is best still and I can easily remove if I have issues with it.

I use the AdGuard app on my mac.

What HACO has suggested is a public DNS service, which filters out ads at their server side, rather than locally. Hence, there isn't an application to download, just a config file for your mac. Installing it just changes some of your connection settings.

You can choose to apply these settings on your router, instead, which will give you adblocking on all devices connected, as far as I'm aware.

 

[beachBOYken]

I use the AdGuard app on my mac.

What HACO has suggested is a public DNS service, which filters out ads at their server side, rather than locally. Hence, there isn't an application to download, just a config file for your mac. Installing it just changes some of your connection settings.

You can choose to apply these settings on your router, instead, which will give you adblocking on all devices connected, as far as I'm aware.

Yeah I kind of understand that, I would rather go per device than at router level though.

Doesn't the app do the same thing still by using the public dns server, but just has an app to customise a bit more?

 

[MrRockliffe]

Yeah I kind of understand that, I would rather go per device than at router level though.

Doesn't the app do the same thing still by using the public dns server, but just has an app to customise a bit more?

I believe the app filters/blocks requests from a set list of URLs on your device, rather than on their server (which the DNS would do).

The app gives you more control, such as adding sites to an allowlist if you don't want to block tracking for them - useful for sites like Quidco.

 

[beachBOYken]

I believe the app filters/blocks requests from a set list of URLs on your device, rather than on their server (which the DNS would do).

The app gives you more control, such as adding sites to an allowlist if you don't want to block tracking for them - useful for sites like Quidco.

May try it on my iPhone first then, cheers.

 

[uvarvu]

https://oisd.nl for the blocklist

 

[ic1male]

I never even thought about this! But because I was using Microsoft Edge with uBlock Origin over on Windows 11, it just transferred seamlessly when I installed Edge on macOS.