Really glad to see this write-up. I love my current PiHole setup, but replicating it for family/friends (especially with my blocking so many sites they might want) hasn't seemed doable. I would be having to help them constantly with blocked sites, etc.,.
My setup could be even better if either Fios or Orbi provided a half-decent router, but just using PiHole as my DNS server has been awesome. When my Pi (SD card) crashed and I had to revert to my old router setup, it was shocking how slow everything was. I'd become so used to pages loading in a blink, waiting a second or two while ads loaded seemed to take forever.
If you have any unused SFF computer gathering dust, give PiHole a try (runs on any of the major linux distros). Initial setup takes under an hour. You can customize the backend out of it with blocksite lists; I'm blocking so much my wife and kids can't even install new iPhone apps. Amazon Devices, Rokus, Google, nothing gets to call home unless I allow it. I have it forcing all Google/Bing searches to use their clean filter; worrying my kids might google "porn" is a thing of the past. There are easy to find tutorials out there, just be sure to filter Google images, as well.
My setup could be even better if either Fios or Orbi provided a half-decent router, but just using PiHole as my DNS server has been awesome. When my Pi (SD card) crashed and I had to revert to my old router setup, it was shocking how slow everything was. I'd become so used to pages loading in a blink, waiting a second or two while ads loaded seemed to take forever.
If you have any unused SFF computer gathering dust, give PiHole a try (runs on any of the major linux distros). Initial setup takes under an hour. You can customize the backend out of it with blocksite lists; I'm blocking so much my wife and kids can't even install new iPhone apps. Amazon Devices, Rokus, Google, nothing gets to call home unless I allow it. I have it forcing all Google/Bing searches to use their clean filter; worrying my kids might google "porn" is a thing of the past. There are easy to find tutorials out there, just be sure to filter Google images, as well.