What does HackerNews think of AdGuardHome?
Network-wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server
If you want to have all the data under you control, there's this: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
Regarding open source, AdGuard DNS actually is: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardDNS
In the case of AdGuard DNS being open source does not change the fact that it is a centralized service and using such a service is a matter of trust.
https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
I love AdGuard home and this might be useful to someone who doesn't want to set up a server. But for friends/family members/anyone who stumbles upon my website, I just hand out the IP/DoT url to everyone to change their DNS server if they'd like. Rarely do I have to whitelist a site and if I do it takes thirty seconds to sort by recently blocked and whitelist it.
Switched a few years ago and it's great!
I get this for free using AdGuard Home[1] that blocks ads at the network level. It's great.
First of all, AdGuard desktop and mobile apps are quite different from hosts files or pi-hole. For instance, they're also able to apply cosmetic rules. Also, and this is really important on Android (unfortunately we can't do that on iOS), AdGuard is able to apply different rules depending on which app makes a request.
The common example is dealing Facebook Audience network. If you need to block Facebook ads in third-party apps with Pi-Hole, you'll have Facebook official apps broken as well. With AG, you can keep the official FB app working and block it in third-party apps at the same time.
Second, on every platform save for iOS, AdGuard filters every network connection and not just DNS queries. There're already multiple examples of apps (for instance, TikTok) that switch to using DOH when they detect that there's DNS filtering messing with their domains. Eventually, every network-level blocker, pi-hole included, will have to control all connections as DNS simply won't be enough.
Regarding Pi-Hole, we actually maintain a free and open source alternative called AdGuard Home: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
First, the css rules are available on adguard as well. You can actually review the documentation here: https://kb.adguard.com/en/general/how-to-create-your-own-ad-...
Second, adguard is free. There are certain premium features, however. For instance, filtering ads outside of your browser requires a premium license. However, if you are comparing it to ublock this was already not a feature that was available to you.
Of course, even that comes with an addendum, which is that this is only something that you need to worry about on mobile devices. Should you be using the desktop version you will actually see that adguard is free and available here on github: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
In regards to pi-hole. The cumbersome nature of pi-hole makes it undesirable for me. There were many sites which were blocked for inexplicable reasons the last time I used a pi-hole and creating a whitelist for these sites requires more work than is necessary. First you must navigate to the portal, and then you must make changes to either the whitelist, or remove a site from the blacklist depending upon why the site is not accessible. It was not seamless design. However, those that find this feature desirable will find that adguard actually offers the same experience with adguard home: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
And as a matter of fact you will notice that there are comparisons between ublock origin available on the github page for your review. There are actually a number of features which are missing from ublock which are simply not possible with ublock origin. As for the accuracy of these features you’ll have to determine that on your own but you can review them here: https://i.imgur.com/5fSLuHx.png
Also, ublock origin does not marginally slow down a webpage rendering. It significantly slows down a webpage rendering. As evidenced here:
With ublock origin: https://i.imgur.com/4NxOysN.png
without ublock origin: https://i.imgur.com/jIlof5e.png
That means that when you are running ublock origin your browser is working at 87.85% capacity. Or in otherwords, a 13.15% decrease in speed. To put this in real world terms it would be similar to reducing the speed to 50mph* on a road that was originally 60mph.
So feel free to keep using ublock origin. As a matter of fact I also use it occasionally in a pinch. (It does, after all, significantly speed up rendering of some webpages. I find it especially useful on webmd.) However, for my daily driver I find it to be a poor solution.
*Rounded down, the actual number is 52.11.
[1] https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
[2] https://github.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker/tree/master/d...