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Seven free blocking filters for ads
Ads Subtracted
Some websites overdo advertisements, piling on pop-ups, video snippets, and product placements in your browser. If the editorial content only appears as an afterthought, it's time to filter out the ads.
An ad filter can be applied to each individual device or make the ad invisible for all clients on a network at a central location. In this article, I compare ad blockers that run on the router or on a device on the network, in which case, the terminal devices do not require any additional software.
Requirements
The ideal setup would have an ad blocker running on low-cost hardware or directly on the existing router, and I would like to be able to make changes to the blacklists if the software filters out too much (or too little).
The ad filter must function in the local language. Even the best software is useless if it does not recognize regional advertising. Finally, I want the ad blocker to prevent access to websites with dubious content or adult entertainment, where applicable.
Candidates
The test candidates come in the form of add-ons for an existing (router) operating system or as additional hardware. Pi-hole, the best-known candidate, has to face the challenger AdGuard Home and the outsider eBlocker. pfBlockerNG, Unbound-Plus, and Adblock join the fray for networks with pfSense, OPNsense, and OpenWrt, respectively. The NxFilter DNS appliance rounds out the list.
All candidates in Table 1 are free of charge and use free blacklists. If no suitable hardware is available on the local network, costs are incurred for a small-board computer (SBC) such as a Raspberry Pi.
Table 1
Ad Filters
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