Despite living in a cramped and cheap boarding house, I tried to make this place as comfortable as possible for me to live in, changing the interior, building a Desk Setup, installing high speed internet, and of course a private server.
On the server that I use, I use Ubuntu Server 20.04.2 and apart from being a place for me to store many things, I also make this server a DNS server, one of which is to install Adblock for all devices connected to the boarding room Internet network. I am.
Previously, I used PiHole, but unfortunately PiHole didn't work well for me, one of which is that it looks really Bootstrap and I don't like it, and after searching here and there, finally the PiHole alternative choice fell to Adguard Home.
Why AdGuard Home?
One of my reasons is because its features are more OK than PiHole, you can see the reference from the following table:
Well, just like in the picture above, besides being able to block ads and trackers, we can also use AdGuard Home as an Encrypted DNS upstream server, and here I activate DNS over HTTPS, so that every device connected to my boarding room network can open all sites. which is blocked by the Indonesian government (of course without having to manually configure each device) because everything is automatic when the device is connected, either via Wifi or Ethernet.
How Good is AdBlock and Tracker Blocking?
Regarding this, of course Ads and Tracker Blocker work according to the filter list that we enter. and in the configuration that I did, there were at least approximately 40,000 DNS Blocklists that I entered, including some popular filterlists on the internet.
In my opinion, the results are quite good, some ads are perfectly blocked, for example, image type ads that usually appear on WinPoin.
However, even so, ads on Youtube or on some video platforms can't be blocked perfectly.
Filter List We Use
For now I'm using the filter list provided by Easylist, which includes Adblock, Privacy, Cookies, and additions from Fanboy Annoyance and I Don't Care About Cookies.
For everyday browsing purposes, even without the adblock extension on Google Chrome that I use, everything is fulfilled.
How to Install and Configure
It feels incomplete if there is a review but there is no installation method and tutorial. And for those who are curious, here are the installation and configuration steps that I did the first time when I tried this Adguard Home.
Adguard Home Installation Steps on Ubuntu Server 20.04
Step 1. First I installed Adguard Home via the Snapd package on Ubuntu 20.04, the steps themselves are very easy, because since Ubuntu Server 20.04 already has the Snapd package in it, we only need to enter the following command to install Adguard Home.
sudo snap install adguard-home
After Adguard Home is downloaded and installed, now we can just open the Dashboard page by logging into our Server IP (in my case here the IP is 192.168.18.5:3000).
If you can't get to the Adguard Home dashboard page, make sure you allow Port 3000 access first in the Firewall.
Step 2. After that, please just follow the initial configuration command requested, starting from the interface you will use, what port you will use, to creating a username and password for access to the admin page later.
In my case, the Network Interface that I use is the default Network Interface of my server, other than that the port I use is Port 80, because I don't use that port on my server.
Long story short, you are done with the initial configuration, and then you can enter the admin dashboard page by entering the IP and Port you are using, but in my case because it is Port 80, access only enters IP (192.168.18.5) just.
Enter the username and password that you created earlier, and you will be faced with a dashboard display as shown in the following image.
Next, let's configure dns over https from Cloudflare, why do I like cloudflare, because it's enough to open all sites on the internet, whether it's Reddit, Raidforum, and some of your favorite popular sites.
Steps to Configure Cloudflare's DNS Over HTTPS on Adguard Home
- Step 1. First on the Dashboard page, please go to Settings > DNS Settings.
- Step 2. Next in the Upstream DNS Server section, please enter the following values: https://1.1.1.1/dns-query
- Step 3. Next in the Bootstrap DNS servers section, also enter the following Cloudflare IP:
1.1.1.11.0.0.12606:4700:4700::11112606:4700:4700::1001
And done, please save your changes.
Setting DNS Server on Modem or Router
Please go to your Modem or Router configuration page, in the DHCP Server section, please set the DNS Server to be the IP Server where Adguard Home is installed, in my case it is 192.168.18.5.
Save the changes and restart your modem or router, and you're done, now Adguard Home should be working fine and all you have to do is add the filter list you like via the dashboard page that I've shown in the image above.
Checking Is DNS Over HTTPS Working?
To check it, we can open the site https://1.1.1.1/help, and if the Connected to 1.1.1.1 and Using DNS over HTTPS (DoH) sections already have Yes status, then the configuration above has been successfully done, now you can open the site your favorites without having to configure any more whether on a desktop browser, iphone, android, tablet, or whatever.
Deficiency
One of the things I think Adguard Home lacks is that the configuration is sometimes confusing, sometimes there are upstream dns file problems, and so on, but if you follow the configuration above, there shouldn't be a problem. In addition, not blocking ads on Youtube is also the biggest drawback in my opinion.
Most Liked
Besides being able to block ads, open any site with DNS Over HTTPS, we can also block certain devices that are connected to our WiFi network, for example, if a foreign device enters my boarding room's internet network, then I can immediately block it easily.
In addition, we can also block certain services, for example Instagram, Youtube or whatever it is easily and with just one click.
And among all that, of course the most interesting thing for me is that I can see the logs of people who use the internet connection of my boarding room, who, what time and what access, I can know, although of course I can't see sensitive information.
Conclusion
As an experiment with the server I made from this broken laptop, I think Adguard Home is okay enough to be used as additional protection from online ads and tracking, besides that the blocking service feature is also quite interesting, especially if you don't want certain services to be opened and accessed because the content is not good, besides that the query log is quite useful, especially to monitor and prevent access to sites that are not good and useful.
To make it even better, if you have family and children who you want to keep their internet activity in check, you can use the Malware and adult content blocking configuration using Cloudflare 1.1.1.3 DNS IP. Well, please try it yourself, as an experiment, just use your favorite VMware or Virtual Machine, and feel the benefits of this Adguard Home.
That's all for this article, I'm sorry if there are shortcomings, both from writing, or the content of this content, because after all I'm still learning to continue to develop to be better. Thank you, don't forget to comment below guys.