This is aimed at iOS users more, but do any of you use any firewall apps like 1 blocker fire wall or adguard dns.
The reason I’m asking is if you have all them things at router level what good does it do on a device level?
On iOS, I’ve tried quite a few combinations and I’ve gotten feedback from users with others.
When I ran pi-hole or AdGuard home, I also used AdGuard on all my iOS devices - both the DNS pseudo-VPN and safari extensions cause otherwise ads would sneak in. The Adguard app removes the annoying ads from Apple News and NYT apps.
Now I just use NextDNS and the same AdGuard iOS app setup.
Interesting, do you or would you recommend a vpn at router level though?
Because forgive me if I’m wrong but if you use a vpn at router level then use adguard dns on the device which creates a vpn profile, wouldn’t that leak your data?
Or would you recommend no vpn on router and just use adguard home, with nextdns as the resolver or upstream?
I don’t run VPNs at the router level. The speed and latency hit, plus the spambot triggers aren’t worth it for me. This is purely a non-privacy minded preference, mind you, and I’m totally not an expert.
You bring up a good point though. Regardless of what’s running upstream, if my device is running private relay, it all gets bypassed. So I have to disable private relay.
My preference is to run nextdns over DoH, AdGuard locally on iOS + Stop the Madness, and a VPN when I’m feeling sheepish.
I used PiHole for a long time, then graduated to self-hosting a VPN so I could get as-blocking when away from my home network.
Ultimately I ended up using just AdGuard DNS via the DNS profile for iOS, and hard code the DNS into my home routers.
There might be a better setup, but this simple deployment takes care of 98% of ads.
Not sure if this is really what you’re looking for but I have pihole at home, then tailscale so my phone always gets the benefit.
DNS66 does the job on Android: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/
