As far as I can tell the default blocking method in current builds is NXDOMAIN. You can read the details directly from the PiHole official page [0]. Short version, it just returns a no such domain.

More info on blocking modes [1]. This says the default (and recommended) blocking mode is NULL but it wasn't the case when I recently did my last install. Not sure if it was something with my build or maybe the docs need to be updated.

You will find that failing to access the resource on the other side will make many clients try and try again. On my PiHole I see Philips Hue, Microsoft, or Sonos with tens of thousands of retries triggered by previous failures to contact their destinations.

[0] https://pi-hole.net/2018/05/18/nxdomain-and-null-blocking-wi...

[1] https://docs.pi-hole.net/ftldns/blockingmode/

Clear and concise. Thank you very much.

The pages you use the most serve some ads from their own domain. E.g. Youtube et. al.

Also beware as most ads in your phone apps come from ad intermediaries that are either dynamic or constantly change.

Pi-Hole is a cool project but please take in consideration those two when using it. We are far from the 90's in ad-tech.

This isn't my area so I'm going off cobbled together knowledge.

Surely Youtube being the size it is has a few Github issues against it saying 'I can't load images because I block the ads'?

I guess what I'm saying is, what is the negative impact of your first point? That some content you want won't come through because the content you don't comes from the same domain?

What HugoDaniel is saying is: PiHole won't let you watch Youtube ad-free. To do this you need an ad-blocking browser extension like uBlock Origin.

This is because Youtube serves content and ads from the same domain, so you can't domain-block ad content without blocking all content.

It runs a local DNS server and a local http host.

You make a DNS query to badsite.com, your local DNS responds with your local http host and you load a pixel image instead of whatever it should have been.

So in that regard, what does a page look like with Pi-Hole running? As 'aesthetic' as uBlock? Or does it still show the ad's dimensions - just not the ad?

In my experience I don't notice things being different when I'm using the Pi-Hole. It just seems like regular functional internet. When I'm not connected is when I'm surprised by how many ads there are and where and when they appear.

Probably depends on the underlying CSS, but obviously CSS that comes with the and won't be downloaded, and I generally don't notice massive empty spaces.

I actually use pfblockerng, it does the same thing without the pretty UI.

I set this up on an RPi last weekend and this is not how it works for me. Trying to resolve blacklisted domains from any network device resolves to 0.0.0.0