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I've set it up for most of my close family and friends, added a physical button to the top of the Raspberry Pi case that disables it for x minutes (x changes de

I've set it up for most of my close family and friends, added a physical button to the top of the Raspberry Pi case that disables it for x minutes (x changes depending who they are and their needs), so if they're having issues they go press the button to access the problematic website. I keep reading about people having to disable the Pi-Hole so much that it becomes annoying, or constantly butting heads with websites that don't work with Pi-Holes, but I can honestly say that I, and the people I've set them up for, BARELY EVER need to use the Disable button. Not for online banking, not for online shopping, not for any regular content consumed. I can't personally think of the last time I needed to disable the Pi-Hole for anything at all. It just sits there blocking ads invisibly, plugged into the back of my modem/router, and is one of my absolute favourite parts of my tech stack. What websites are people visiting that the Pi-Hole doesn't work with? I'm genuinely curious, because I've been running mine for a couple years now and can't think of anything off the top of my head, and no one in my family group have ever complained about it, with most telling me it's been flawless and they barely every touch the button.

rablackburn 6y ago
I like that physical button solution. Do you have a github repo or blog post documenting how you did it anywhere?
- ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
  I haven't posted anything, but it's pretty simple really. Follow any of the guides to make a physical button run a Python/BASH script[0] and then I wrote a small script that just CURLs the URL to disable the Pi-Hole for a few minutes (eg: curl --silent http://192.168.2.2/admin/api.php?disable=600&auth=PASSWORD http://192.168.2.2/admin/api.php?disable=600&auth=PASSWORD ). I've been meaning to make a blog post about it but haven't got around to it yet. I'll try write something up later today/tonight. [0] https://raspberrypihq.com/use-a-push-button-with-raspberry-pi-gpio/ https://raspberrypihq.com/use-a-push-button-with-raspberry-p... Edit: I found this which is a much bigger/fancier version of what I did, but has the associated code you can pull out for a simple button: https://github.com/nickearl/piHoleButtons https://github.com/nickearl/piHoleButtons
senectus1 6y ago
I like the button idea... you got a howto for that?
- ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
  Answered above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075004
jachee 6y ago
> What websites are people visiting that the Pi-Hole doesn't work with? Usually sites where the dev has based functionality on a JS module loaded from an advertise/tracker site, and that is being blocked, resulting in missing functionality. Two prominent examples that I've personally had to deal with: CVS, and Taco Bell's iOS app. Edit: Oh, and google's inserted redirects in shopping results lists are blocked by default.
- afishisafish 6y ago
  Airline metasearch engines like Skyscanner & Kayak use all kinds of advertisement and tracking trickery.
LocalPCGuy 6y ago
My wife gets a lot of email, most of it marketing stuff. Most email links will not work with PiHole enabled due to the massive amount of tracking they go through. I always know when she's checking her email if I'm on my phone, cause all of a sudden I start seeing ads for a few minutes.
Firehawke 6y ago
I get occasional instances. I've let everyone know to let me know if they're experiencing issues and I can check the log and whitelist specific material that needs it. That comes up now and again, not as much as you'd expect but enough that I needed to give instruction on it. Funny thing is, most of those cases are _me_ doing things like signing into Nvidia's software instead of anyone else here.
lazyeye 6y ago
This is where Firefox DNS over Https comes in handy. I have 2 Firefox installs - Firefox and Firefox Developer Edition with one set to use DOH so always bypassing pihole.

rablackburn 6y ago

I like that physical button solution. Do you have a github repo or blog post documenting how you did it anywhere?

ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
I haven't posted anything, but it's pretty simple really. Follow any of the guides to make a physical button run a Python/BASH script[0] and then I wrote a small script that just CURLs the URL to disable the Pi-Hole for a few minutes (eg: curl --silent http://192.168.2.2/admin/api.php?disable=600&auth=PASSWORD http://192.168.2.2/admin/api.php?disable=600&auth=PASSWORD ). I've been meaning to make a blog post about it but haven't got around to it yet. I'll try write something up later today/tonight. [0] https://raspberrypihq.com/use-a-push-button-with-raspberry-pi-gpio/ https://raspberrypihq.com/use-a-push-button-with-raspberry-p... Edit: I found this which is a much bigger/fancier version of what I did, but has the associated code you can pull out for a simple button: https://github.com/nickearl/piHoleButtons https://github.com/nickearl/piHoleButtons

senectus1 6y ago

I like the button idea... you got a howto for that?

ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
Answered above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075004

jachee 6y ago

> What websites are people visiting that the Pi-Hole doesn't work with? Usually sites where the dev has based functionality on a JS module loaded from an advertise/tracker site, and that is being blocked, resulting in missing functionality. Two prominent examples that I've personally had to deal with: CVS, and Taco Bell's iOS app. Edit: Oh, and google's inserted redirects in shopping results lists are blocked by default.

afishisafish 6y ago
Airline metasearch engines like Skyscanner & Kayak use all kinds of advertisement and tracking trickery.

LocalPCGuy 6y ago

My wife gets a lot of email, most of it marketing stuff. Most email links will not work with PiHole enabled due to the massive amount of tracking they go through. I always know when she's checking her email if I'm on my phone, cause all of a sudden I start seeing ads for a few minutes.

Firehawke 6y ago

I get occasional instances. I've let everyone know to let me know if they're experiencing issues and I can check the log and whitelist specific material that needs it. That comes up now and again, not as much as you'd expect but enough that I needed to give instruction on it. Funny thing is, most of those cases are _me_ doing things like signing into Nvidia's software instead of anyone else here.

lazyeye 6y ago

This is where Firefox DNS over Https comes in handy. I have 2 Firefox installs - Firefox and Firefox Developer Edition with one set to use DOH so always bypassing pihole.