Pi-Hole is NOT blocking everything!

Your Pi-hole is not blocking everything. Stuff is making it onto the network from the internet without you knowing it. And here are the five things Pi-hole is missing and number two means half the devices on your network might be ignoring it completely. But first, I gotta own something. A while back, I told you that Pi-hole blocks every single ad on your network. That needed some more explanation. And I think some of you found that out the hard way. Pi-hole is still the best free thing you can put on your network. And I stand by that. But it does have some spots and here they are. Number one, YouTube ads. Everyone about serves its ads from the exact same domains that the videos from. So there's no domain with Pi-hole you can block with. If you did block it, you would break YouTube. Pi-hole failing, Google that purpose. Number two, and this is the one that really matters. Devices that use DNS over HTTPS on your network. Chrome does it, Firefox does it, a whole lot of smart streaming boxes do it. They encrypt their DNS and send it straight to their own resolver. So your Pi-hole never even sees the request. It's not blocking anything because nobody is asking it. So go pull up a query right now. If you have a device that barely shows up there, this is why. Number three, hard coded DNS. Some devices completely ignore your router and go straight to 8.8.8.8. Smart TVs are the worst offenders. The fix for both two and three is the exact same. You need a firewall rule that redirects outbound port 53 back to your Pi-hole. And while you're in that firewall, block endpoints there. Number four, server side ad insertion. Twitch does this, and so do Hulu, Spotify. They stitch the ad into the stream before their server. So it arrives as one file. There's nothing separate you can block with Pi-hole. Number five, in app ads on Facebook and Instagram. Trick. Same trick. Those ads come from the same servers do. The Pi-hole is not a magic wand. It's a good filter. Exactly are full. My build log it's on my profile. So go check it out. Save this video. Follow. Nerdy.