Pi-hole network-wide ad blocker

Context

I love to cook, but I absolutely hate recipe websites with all of the ads. I wanted a way to easily browse recipes and websites without constantly having to dismiss ads.

Process

I used a Raspberry Pi and configured Pi-hole, a network-wide ad blocker, that acts as a Domain Name System-sinkhole and protects all of your network devices from unwanted ad content without having to install any client-side software.

Outcome

As a result, over 27% of queries have been blocked on our network since configuring the pi-hole. Network performance has improved due to the fact that ads are blocked before they are even downloaded.

Learnings

I learned more about the Domain Name System (DNS) and how our devices depend on it. I also got more comfortable making changes in my router's admin panel, such as assigning static IPs to specific devices using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Finally, I learned the importance of redundancy because the moment my Pi goes down, our whole internet will stop working!

Next steps

Purchase another Raspberry Pi and setup pi-hole to that we have a back-up in place if the main pi-hole goes down.