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ZDNET key takeaways
- Blocking ads on your home network isn’t as hard as you think.
- If blocking ads on a per-device basis isn’t enough, try these options.
- Both of these options are free and effective.
How many ads do you see per day? I’m guessing you see them so often that you can’t keep track. Ads aren’t just annoying; they can also be dangerous. One malicious ad and you wind up with malware or ransomware on your computers, phones, tablets, and even TVs.
If you’ve ever had to deal with malware or ransomware, you know how bad that can get.
You may have tried extensions like uBlock Origin, but that would mean you’d have to install the extension on every device that connects to your LAN. You’re not going to have much luck doing that on your TV or a phone that doesn’t include a browser that supports extensions. What do you do?
Also: The best secure browsers for privacy: Expert tested
Well, you can think wider and block ads across your LAN. I know it sounds hard, but there is at least one method most people should be able to take care of. Let’s dive into the options you have for blocking ads across your entire home network.
1. Use ad-blocking DNS on your router
This is the easiest method. The way your network is most likely set up is that the router uses DHCP to hand out IP addresses for each machine. Along with the IP addresses, the router also assigns DNS addresses to those machines. Typically, the router will use the DNS servers of your ISP, which are pretty basic and have no security or privacy features included.
Instead of using your ISP’s DNS servers, you should log into your router, locate the DNS address setting, and change it to ad-blocking DNS servers. There are services that offer ad-blocking DNS servers, such as:
- AdGuard DNS: A free service that blocks ads, trackers, and malicious domains. There are also options for family protection that include adult content blocking.
- NextDNS: Offers significant customization so you can block various types of content and even create your own filter lists.
- ControlD: Provides custom DNS settings for ad blocking and other features.
For example, the NextDNS ad-blocking server IP addresses are 45.90.28.152 and 45.90.30.152. You would need to log into the router your ISP provided (which is commonly at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254), locate the DNS section, and replace what is there with the IP addresses above.
If you’d rather use AdGuard’s DNS, they are 94.140.14.14 and 94.140.15.15.
If you’d like to use ControlD, they are 76.76.2.2 and 76.76.10.2.
Also: How to secure your home and office network: The best DNS blockers and firewalls
Once you’ve configured those DNS addresses, you have to make sure that all of your devices are set up for DHCP so the router will hand out the proper information (including the ad-blocking DNS).
If you just want to do that on a per-device basis, you can simply configure one of the above sets of DNS servers for your computer, phone, or tablet.
2. Use a dedicated ad blocker
The next method is much more challenging, but anyone with a decent amount of tech knowledge should be able to pull this off.
What you want to do is, using either a spare computer or a Raspberry Pi device, install a dedicated ad blocker on your home network. There are two main dedicated ad blockers that most people trust: Pi-hole or AdGuard Home.
Let me show you how the AdGuard Home installation process goes.
Also: How to turn on Android’s Private DNS mode – and why you should ASAP
There are two viable methods for installing AdGuard Home: Manual or Containerized. I would suggest going with the manual setup, which looks like this:
- Download the latest AdGuard Home release for your operating system (Linux, MacOS, or Windows) from the AdGuard Home GitHub releases page.
- Extract the downloaded ZIP file.
- On Windows, open your terminal with administrator privileges, navigate to the AdGuard Home folder using the cd command, then run AdGuardHome.exe -s install to run it as a service.
- On Linux and MacOS, navigate to the directory housing the AdGuard Home binary and run sudo ./AdGuardHome -s install to install it as a service.
- Once you’ve taken care of the steps above, open a web browser on your home network, go to http://SERVER:3000 (where SERVER is the IP address of the hosting machine), and walk through the setup process.
The AdGuard Home setup process isn’t nearly as hard as you might think.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
I would recommend starting with the first method and seeing if that doesn’t take care of the ads you see. If that doesn’t work, then try the second method (which is more powerful and capable). Either way, you should be able to get rid of most ads on your network with one of the above methods.
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