Pi-hole gets around this problem by doing all the ad-and tracker-blocking at your router, so all the internet traffic coming into your house is filtered for advertising and tracking.
If you use the wireguard protocol, the DNS is a required part of the config. Commercial VPNs should default to their own DNS because your ISP or whomever could still see what domains you’re visiting if you leave your ISPs router set as your DNS, since that looks local to the VPN.
PIA and others offer pihole type functionality. Your local pihole needs an upstream server, and whichever one you pick will see what domains you visit (outside any VPN) so pick one that you trust.
I’ve been looking in to this a bit more. I was interested in what you said about PIA so I had a look at my current VPN’s options (airvpn). Turns out they also have ad blocking options that I do remember configuring one time but then completely forgot about them.
I think I’m still going to try the pi-hole option though as my problem is with my Apple TV. I can’t install a vpn app on that. Looking at the link that op posted it’s possible to use the pi-hole on a per device basis by changing the DNS setting on the device rather than on the router, so I’ll continue using my VPN on my computer and mobile devices and just route the Apple TV through a pi-hole
Yup, you got it. If you want to give it a test run, you can also use adguards free public DNS. It’s like a public pihole, but I’m sure they’re collecting data.
If you use the wireguard protocol, the DNS is a required part of the config. Commercial VPNs should default to their own DNS because your ISP or whomever could still see what domains you’re visiting if you leave your ISPs router set as your DNS, since that looks local to the VPN.
PIA and others offer pihole type functionality. Your local pihole needs an upstream server, and whichever one you pick will see what domains you visit (outside any VPN) so pick one that you trust.
I’ve been looking in to this a bit more. I was interested in what you said about PIA so I had a look at my current VPN’s options (airvpn). Turns out they also have ad blocking options that I do remember configuring one time but then completely forgot about them.
I think I’m still going to try the pi-hole option though as my problem is with my Apple TV. I can’t install a vpn app on that. Looking at the link that op posted it’s possible to use the pi-hole on a per device basis by changing the DNS setting on the device rather than on the router, so I’ll continue using my VPN on my computer and mobile devices and just route the Apple TV through a pi-hole
Yup, you got it. If you want to give it a test run, you can also use adguards free public DNS. It’s like a public pihole, but I’m sure they’re collecting data.
https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
Oh that’s cool, I’m gonna give that a go right now.