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Running a Privacy DNS Server at Home

This entry was posted on May 09 2023

I have been a privacy nut for as long as I can remember but have been reluctant to install a Pi-hole at home because I was already using ad-blockers & tracking blockers in my browser and don’t have my TV connected to the network.

However I thought it would be worthwhile to install Pi-hole on a spare Raspberry Pi I had lying around to see what value it might add, and despite using Brave Browser and Privacy Badger in Firefox I was surprised to see that Pi-hole was still blocking around 25% of requests. In the first month it has still blocked over 6,000 DNS requests. Most of these are maybe requests coming from apps on my phone which I hadn’t considered.

I have also followed the recommendation to configure Unbound which will bypass your local, ISP and any upstream DNS providers to get the IP address directly from the authoritative DNS server, adding another layer of privacy.

Pi-hole comes with a nice dashboard and is easy to navigate and upgrade as you can see in the attached screenshot

My next project is to buy a new WiFi router and install OpenWRT onto it to protect my home network further.

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