3 DNS Blocklists for PiHole, AdGuard or blocky

A DNS ad blocker has become part of the standard setup in every homelab. Of course, these ad blockers require DNS blocklists that should be maintained. In this post, I’ll show you my lists and explain why I recommend them.

Of course, you can maintain many more lists than the three I recommend in this post, but more lists also cause more load and can impact your ad blocker’s performance.

Which software you use to block ads is, of course, a matter of preference. Since I run GitOps in my Kubernetes cluster and prefer config-as-code (enough buzzwords for now), I use blocky. However, these lists work just as well in PiHole or AdGuard.

Ads and Trackers

To block ads and trackers, this single list is usually sufficient. So far, I haven’t noticed any ads slipping through that could be filtered by an ad blocker.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ookangzheng/dbl-oisd-nl/master/dbl.txt

TV Ads and Tracking

Of course, no ads are blocked on regular TV, but modern smart TVs — if connected to the network and the internet — use various trackers to, for example, display ads via the red button feature. I’ve configured several lists for this on my setup, but generally, the first list would already be enough.

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/wassname/b594c63222f9e4c83ea23c818440901b/raw/1b0afd2aecf3a099f1681b1cf18fc0e6e2fa116a/Samsung%2520Smart-TV%2520Blocklist%2520Adlist%2520(for%2520PiHole)
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/wassname/78eeaaad299dc4cddd04e372f20a9aa7/raw/d7863a978993e99d9c77c9001008ce670a3b4c29/LG%2520Smart-TV%2520Blocklist%2520Adlist%2520(for%2520PiHole)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/hkamran80/779019103fcd306979411d44c8d38459/raw/e0f084b396bb8ffcb390c8e7272ae96a6c2

Fake News

This list blocks domains known for fake news, conspiracy theories, and misinformation.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jojo321/hosts/master/fakenews

Whitelist

Of course, you should also maintain a whitelist — otherwise, you’ll likely block legitimate services. For example, in my environment, this includes Apple and Google services that are sometimes blocked by generic lists.

Further Recommendations

If you want to explore even more blocklists, take a look at these collections:

• https://firebog.net/ (external link)
• https://blocklistproject.github.io/Lists/ (external link)
• https://github.com/blocklistproject/Lists (external link)