Seven free blocking filters for ads
Ads Subtracted
Synopsis
AdGuard Home is optimally suited for environments with different protection requirements. Individual clients can be restricted with parental control, Internet security, or safe search. Additional blacklists compensate for weak support for non-English markets.
NxFilter
The full-fledged NxFilter DNS appliance [5] can filter by categories and policies. Advertising is just one of many categories that the software hides in DNS responses.
NxFilter is based on Java and therefore runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. It is licensed under a commercial Linux license, which remains free of charge for up to 25 clients. By default, it runs as a regular DNS server without filtering.
From the NxFilter web interface, you can create policies that filter out certain categories or keywords. The policies created apply to individual clients or to specific users in an Active Directory domain. The possibility of integration with Active Directory, OpenLDAP, or RADIUS makes it clear that NxFilter works best on corporate networks. However, the category filter is also attractive for home use; for example, websites about alcohol, tobacco, and gambling can be inaccessible to the smartphones of underage children.
Out of the box, NxFilter does not use blacklists; rather, it compares the accessed domain with predefined patterns and finds the stored category. These search patterns can be flexibly adapted and represent a unique selling point of NxFilter.
Synopsis
NxFilter can define in a very granular way what clients are allowed access by web page or category. For home networks, this granularity seems almost over the top. Despite the potential complexity, NxFilter can be quickly installed and set up with a simple policy.
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