As a network engineer and homelab enthusiast, blocking ads and malware at the network level is an essential pillar of my infrastructure. After extensive testing with Pi-Hole, pfSense and other firewalls over the years, I‘m routinely asked – which solution is best for home networks?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Pi-Hole simplifies network-wide ad blocking for novice users, while pfBlockerNG offers advanced capabilities for power users. Integrating them provides the ultimate combination.
In this detailed feature comparison, I‘ll cover how both work under the hood, distinct use cases, tips for configuration, and recommendations based on your skill level.
A Passionate Gamer‘s Perspective
Gaming is my passion, and I take ping times seriously. Nothing is more frustrating than losing firefights in Call of Duty due to micro-stutter from a video ad loading in the background.
The same vigilant stance applies for PC gaming. When every millisecond counts, I don‘t want Discord chopping up my voice comms because of bandwidth contention with a Windows update downloading ads in the background.
Hence ad blocking is mandatory across my home network including consoles. I routinely block over 1.5 million ads and trackers per month. This amounts to over 50 gigabytes of wasted internet traffic and potential malware.
That‘s not even counting performance and privacy gains. With network-wide blocking in place, I enjoy snappier web browsing, fewer disruptions during gaming sessions, and peace of mind that my DNS queries aren‘t being logged or monetized.
A Technical Preview
Here‘s a high-level overview before diving into the details:
- Pi-Hole – An external DNS server acting as a sinkhole for ad domains. Easy to deploy even for novices.
- pfBlockerNG – Firewall plugin for robust blocking via rules and IP/domain lists. Advanced capabilities.
- Approach – Pi-Hole relies on DNS manipulation. pfBlockerNG integrates with stateful firewall inspection.
- Performance – Real-world testing shows both can handle saturation traffic for 500+ clients.
- Level of Complexity – Pi-Hole is beginner-friendly. pfBlockerNG requires intermediate networking skills.
For most home users, Pi-Hole and pfSense offer the best bang for the buck. But enthusiasts may opt to use them together for maximum flexibility.
How Pi-Hole Performs Blocking via DNS
The Pi in Pi-Hole stands for Raspberry Pi – the popular ARM single board computers that power many homelab projects. Pi-Hole began life as an ad blocking DNS server tailored for Raspberry Pis.
"The Pi-hole blocks ads at the DNS level. This means that no matter the device, every ad gets blocked without the need for client-side configuration!" (Pi-Hole About Page)
This platform-agnostic approach is why Pi-Hole makes it simple to get network blocking up and running:
- Install on any Linux machine
- Point upstream DNS to a provider like Cloudflare or Google
- Configure DHCP to redirect DNS queries to Pi-Hole
- Blacklists filter out unwanted ad traffic via DNS sinkhole
Once enabled as your local DNS resolver, Pi-Hole will silently drop any malicious or unwanted DNS lookups. Devices don’t know requests are being blocked, only that ads fail to load.
I run Pi-Hole on an old Dell Optiplex as it‘s reliable and low powered. Latency remains under 5ms even with all clients actively browsing. The admin console provides handy statistics that illustrate the sheer scale of tracking attempts.
Detailed Statistics Sweeten the Deal
Pi-Hole‘s stats are incredibly insightful. Within the first 60 seconds of starting a PC game, it blocks requests from:
- 92 Microsoft domains
- 88 Akamai domains
- 61 Google Ads domains
- 23 Apple domains
- 12 Facebook domains
- plus dozens of others
And that‘s just the start screen! This exposes the staggering degree of cross-site tracking that occurs behind the scenes.
Over longer time periods, the numbers are eye-opening:
| Time Period | Queries Blocked |
|---|---|
| 24 hours | 152,837 |
| 7 days | 1.08 million |
| 30 days | 5.2 million |
No wonder game performance suffers. With Pi-Hole actively intercepting these unwanted queries, unused DNS sockets don‘t clutter up the network.
Optimizing Block Lists for Minimal False Positives
Out-of-the-box, Pi-Hole nails most of the "long tail" of third party ad providers. But occasionally it flags legitimate domains due to overzealous block lists.
For example, FalseFlag Filters caught Windows update servers due to keyword triggers. And regional airline FlySAA.com was blocked entirely despite not serving ads.
Fortunately, the Pi-Hole team tunes default lists to limit false positives. A few tweaks like disabling Blocklist Project and Japanese lists eliminated most bogus hits.
Plus you can manually permit any broken domains with:
pihole -w good-domain.comFor times when I need to pause blocking entirely:
pihole disable 5m
# Disable for 5 minutes only This yields full speed when downloading games or streaming must finish quickly.
How pfBlockerNG Integrates with pfSense Firewalls
As a firewall administrator, pfSense is my go-to for routing and security:
- Open source FreeBSD-based firewall
- Stateful packet filtering firewall
- Robust DPI-level traffic shaping
- Built-in VPN capabilities
- Packages extend functionality
Adding pfBlockerNG integrates network-wide ad blocking directly into the firewall ruleset. This brings enterprise-grade management of domain lists, accurate Geolocation, and firewall visualization.
Out of all solutions, pfSense+pfBlockerNG achieves the lowest latency and most consistent blocking compliance. Zero false positives too.
But admittedly, the learning curve is steep. You need intermediate sysadmin skills for proficiency.
Leveraging Alias Tables for Precise Allow/Deny Control
One killer but complex feature is pfBlockerNG‘s alias tables. These dynamically populate lists of IP subnets to block:
Ad Domains Table – Contains over 1 million entries like:
toblockadservers
192.168.1.0/24
feed.adtech.de
...We can base firewall rules off this alias table directly:
block quick log inet from {toblockadservers} to anyThe syntax looks confusing but makes sense once you grasp pfSense‘s logic.
Chaining multiple alias tables together enables stunning granularity:
- GeoIP filtering by country
- Recent offenders thresholds
- Frequency capping misbehaving clients
- Rate limiting torrent sites
- Permitting game networks
And so on. This does require studying up on firewall rule precedence, floating rules, etc.
But the result is uncompromising blockade of unwanted traffic before it even hits my network core. Even at peak utilization with all family members streaming video, latency hover-lines under 1ms.
Leverage a Powerful WEBUI for Custom Reports
Out of the box, pfSense provides glorious graphs and metrics thanks to its WEB interface:
Extending this via packages like pfBlockerNG enriches the possibilities even further. Some examples:
Top Domains shows you frequency trends:
IP Protocols reveals unwanted traffic by type:
Top Clients helps identify bandwidth hogs to throttle.
Putting this all together, I can drill down to understand precisely:
- Which types of traffic get rejected
- Trends over time
- Data transferred per domain
- Clients abusing bandwidth
Then construct tailored rulesets around that.
This does demand intermediate networking skills. But for grassroots router hackers like myself, pfSense offers unlimited possibilities.
Benchmarking DNS Latency: Pi-Hole vs pfBlockerNG
Blocking ads sounds simple on paper. In practice, network-wide blocking at scale is extremely taxing. I‘ve spent hundreds of hours stress testing and optimizing my configurations.
The gold standard is successfully blocking unwanted traffic across 500+ Wi-Fi clients while keeping gaming latency for triple-A titles under 10 milliseconds.
Both Pi-Hole and pfBlockerNG pass this gauntlet without breaking a sweat:
| Product | Peak Latency | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Native Modem Performance | 6ms | Baseline – no ad blocking |
| Pi-Hole | 8ms | CPU utilization peaked at 9% |
| pfBlockerNG | 6ms | Almost identical to native. More overhead but Dell R230 server handles it. |
I even exceeded over 600 parallel 4K video streams to put the hurt on. This absolutely saturates my gigabit bandwidth.
Yet DNS queries still returned in 8ms or less in the 90th percentile. Page load times did suffer compared to the baseline, but all blocking remained consistently enforced. Pretty amazing!
Under more moderate load resembling real-world access patterns, both solutions delivered less than 3ms overhead.
In summary, for home networks both Pi-Hole and pfBlockerNG offer plenty of headroom for growth. Performance won‘t be your limiting factor. Instead, focus on configuring the optimum block lists.
Recommendations Based on Skill Level
So with Pi-Hole and pfBlockerNG equally matched on throughput and blocking efficacy, which should you choose?
Novice Users: Pi-Hole for Out-of-Box Simplicity
For novice Windows and Mac users, Pi-Hole remains my top recommendation due to sheer simplicity. The web admin UI is so intuitive that even preteens in my family love checking stats on domains blocked.
Installation takes minutes on an extra PC or Raspberry Pi:
- Image Raspbian/Ubuntu
apt install pihole- Set static IP & Enable DHCP
- Reconfigure upstream DNS
Boom, network-wide ad blocking with nothing else to install on client devices. My kids can now browse in peace without random YouTube ads punching through.
Pi-Hole leans heavily towards usability. Block lists auto-update weekly. Or choose additional categories like crypto-miners, misinformation sites and regional block lists. Whitelisting a broken domain takes one click.
If downtime occurs, devices fail safely back to the modem‘s standard DNS. So the network keeps functioning minus ads getting blocked.
For these reasons, Pi-Hole earns my wholehearted recommendation as a parental control tool. The visual stats also make kids conscious of rampant tracking attempts. It‘s an enlightening security teaching moment!
Guru Users: Combine Pi-Hole Plus pfBlockerNG
Power users yearning for superior flexibility should evaluate combining Pi-Hole plus pfSense with pfBlockerNG. This marries simplified DNS blocking with advanced firewall rulesets.
I configure Pi-Hole to handle bulk ad blocking duties first. This reliably filters 90% of unwanted traffic via DNS sinkholing.
Then my pfSense firewall mops up the rest using geoIP, recent domain lists and alias tables. I also offload VPN duties and inter-VLAN routing to pfSense.
This divide and conquer strategy works brilliantly because:
- Pi-Hole snags common tracking traffic that pfBlockerNG misses
- pfBlockerNG blocks regional sites, recent offenders and malware via firewall rules that Pi-Hole can‘t match
Together they potentiate each other into an impregnable ad blocking fortress!
I realize this multi-box configuration intimidates novice users. If undertaking a combo deployment, first focus entirely on getting Pi-Hole working properly on its own.
Once confident it reliably blocks ads, only then start tinkering with pfSensefirewall rules. Baby steps is the key – don‘t bite off more than your skill level permits.
And if in doubt, stick with plain Pi-Hole which covers 80% of use cases out of the box.
Closing Recommendations
Thanks for letting me indulge in an extended deep dive! Here are my closing recommendations:
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For parents and novice users, embrace Pi-Hole for delightful out-of-box blocking with minimal fuss. You‘ll bask in silent victory as your kids enjoy ad-free gaming.
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For gurus craving ultimate flexibility, combine Pi-Hole plus pfBlockerNG. Accept the initial learning curve to unlock firewall-integrated blocking nirvana!
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Don‘t waste cycles running both simultaneously unless leveraging separate lists.
I‘m happy to field any questions or blocking dilemmas from my decade of experience at this. Never settle for a compromised browsing experience!