
Show HN: Ad-Free Life – Adblocking as a Service - adfreelife
https://www.adfree.life
======
Brendinooo
I'm not the most networking-literate person. How does this work? In the case
PiHole you set your router force all of the devices on the network to go
through the Pi, correct? So for this service you'd be routing all of your
internet traffic through a remote server run by a company you know very little
about? That feels sketchy to me, but again it might just be due to ignorance
or misunderstanding.

Also, to anyone who has used PiHole - what do you do when a news site bugs you
about using an ad blocker? What's the equivalent of "open up your other
browser to access the page"?

Side note: why are people flagging this? Seems like a normal "Show HN"-type of
post to me, but I'm not always savvy to the etiquette here.

~~~
adfreelife
I'm not sure why it keeps getting flagged, but it seems to be removed quickly
afterwards.

It actually only sends your DNS traffic, which turns a pretty url (like
[https://www.adfree.life](https://www.adfree.life)) into an ugly IP (like
70.42.251.42) and then returns to your computer to make the actual call with
all of the important stuff. It is not to be confused with a VPN, where your
traffic could actually be logged. You can read more about it here
[http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm](http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm)

~~~
Bartweiss
To be blunt, that's still too much for me. I'm already unhappy about my ISP
having my DNS history, I certainly don't want to offer it to a third part for
a service that I could run without giving up that info.

I don't say that as a product criticism, I see why you can't do it another way
and plenty of people won't mind. But if you're curious, that takes me out of
the pool for this service. Shipping trusted hardware that could go behind a
router is about all I'd be open to.

~~~
shock
Give dnscrypt a try. Someone will still know that your IP made those requests,
but it will be much harder to tie your identity to the IP.

------
aembleton
This is PiHole[1] as a service without any mention about pricing. You can buy
a Pi for ~£10 (one off price) and install this for your own network in a few
minutes.

1\. [https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

~~~
adfreelife
I tried to be transparent about pricing, and the free trial lasts an entire
day before resetting to make sure you are comfortable setting it up before
purchasing. You are getting a dedicated VPS with every plan, no sharing. So
the price includes the overhead there.

~~~
BillinghamJ
Seems a little weird and highly inefficient to separate them like that,
especially use of IPs etc.

Why not just have one large instance?

~~~
diffset
Wouldn't different people want different things on their whitelist/blacklist?
AFAIK Pi-hole doesn't offer a way to do that.

~~~
adfreelife
That's exactly right. Everyone gets their own white/blacklist, control over
logging, etc. And how would you end a subscription if the IP still existed
with the software?

------
malchow
I like this part of the pitch: "Ads on news sites gobble up as much as 79% of
users' mobile data. Why are you wasting valuable data to see ads?"

Precious data –– there's only so much of it, and when we burn it all, it'll be
gone.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3bZ6y_23_Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3bZ6y_23_Y)

~~~
jmcdiesel
No to mention your mobile data wouldn't be going through the device?

------
madjam002
I would have thought that the target market for this service are the sort of
people who would just run PiHole at home, or set up their own VPS if they
really wanted? Most non-technical people I know are just happy with an ad
blocker extension so they won't be interested.

I'm interested to see how this pans out.

~~~
adfreelife
Thanks for checking it out! I actually am the sort of person that runs a pi-
hole at home on a pi, but I wanted my family's devices to be blocking ads also
when we left the house, and I found it a pain to always be asking to install
extensions on each of the browsers on each of the computers, so a cloud
offering let me manage it in one place (after setting up the DNS). I figured I
was not alone as a hacker/tinkerer with a family and though others might
benefit.

~~~
pecord
What ad lists does it use? the standard one?

~~~
adfreelife
The pihole is pre-configured with

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts)

[https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains](https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains)

[http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts](http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts)

[https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/blocklist.php?download=domainbl...](https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/blocklist.php?download=domainblocklist)

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking.txt)

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt](https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt)

[https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt](https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt)

------
adfreelife
The main selling point over just buying a raspberry pi and installing it
locally on your home network is that it only works out of the box on your home
network. Opening up your network to the internet is not recommended for the
average developer, and generally not recommended at all.

Yes, you can set up your own VPS for less than $9/mo. But not much less.

There is a lot of concern over logging the DNS entries. I'll put a notice on
the site, but you are not only able to clear your logs at any time but are
also able to turn off logging altogether. I do not keep your logs.

This is not a DNS provider, this is simply a layer that attempts to stifle
known ads and trackers. You can already assume your DNS logs are being used
somewhere, this does not stop that.

This does not use a VPN to hide your IP.

~~~
thewavelength
Technical question: when I send over my DNS requests to you (do I actually do
that?), aren't those requests unencrypted going over the internet so everybody
can sniff on which pages I visit?

------
andai
This looks promising! I'm a bit unclear on who the target audience is though.
Techies? Regular folks? Techies who want to secure their loved ones? Are you
trying to take out the hassle of configuring Pi Hole on a VPS, or to create an
easy solution for the average person? It seems like the former to me, so just
making sure that you're aware that's how the site comes across.

If you can afford it I would get a professional designer to take a look at the
site. It looks pretty good but it's a little bit "off", rough around the edges
somehow.

If you're targeting tech people it won't matter as much, but still, first
impressions are important.

Best wishes :)

~~~
Bartweiss
I see two obvious targets: people who want this service but aren't game to
configure a Pi Hole, and techies who travel and want a fast-and-easy way to
get this benefit on any network.

~~~
0xffff2
Won't Pi-Hole work fine on any VPS? Seems there are much cheaper solutions for
anyone who is willing to do the Pi-Hole configuration themselves.

------
659087
Why would someone route their traffic through your servers, opening themselves
up to a whole slew of potential privacy issues, and pay you for it, to
accomplish the same thing they could do on their own for the cost of a
Raspberry pi?

~~~
adfreelife
You are getting a dedicated VPS, so there is no cross traffic sharing between
other subscriptions. You can also disable logging if you don't want to graphs.
A Raspberry Pi has to be set up on your own local network, and you'd have to
open up that port to the world to be able to use it from outside your home,
which has farther reaching security issues. This is limiting that exposure to
a dedicated VPS outside your network.

~~~
659087
> You are getting a dedicated VPS, so there is no cross traffic sharing
> between other subscriptions. You can also disable logging if you don't want
> to graphs.

...but neither of those things tell me that _you_ don't still have access to
that data, which is kind of the whole issue.

~~~
aaomidi
Its DNS. How do you propose they have access to the data?

~~~
659087
DNS queries are data, and can give a motivated party plenty of insight into a
user's internet usage habits.

~~~
aaomidi
Sure they are. However, all dns servers are going to have this issue. Even
most selfhosted ones, like a self hosted pihole use Google DNS as its backend.

The data is far less valuable than your original claim of "Why would someone
route their traffic through your servers" which sounds like a VPN/Proxy.

------
soviel
How do you make sure your pi-hole instance is only used by the rightful user?
After all you can't restrict port 53, and I am sure iptables are not an option
here since you don't know from where the users will be connecting?

~~~
saimiam
I want to know this too.

FD - I recently launched an adblock as a service (listed in my profile.)

Edit1 - maybe it's security through anonymity. Don't tell anyone your DNS
server address?

~~~
soviel
I doubt it. People are specifically looking for open port 53. After reading a
bit the pi-hole documentation, I found out they recommend pairing it with
OpenVPN. [https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/wiki/Pi-hole---OpenVPN-
se...](https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/wiki/Pi-hole---OpenVPN-server)

~~~
saimiam
If OP is using a vpn to route traffic, they should call it out.

Our adblocker uses a much less intrusive idea than VPN to block unauthorized
IPs from hitting 53.

------
angryasian
The general problem I see with network ad blockers is sometimes you need to
enable certain blocked domains for certain sites to work. When the utility or
content of the site outweighs the need to block , its impossible to do with
most of these network level blockers.

------
jmcdiesel
"Ads on news sites gobble up as much as 79% of users' mobile data. Why are you
wasting valuable data to see ads?"

My understanding is that this is a device on your network... your home
network. Can you explain how this device/service would help your mobile data?

~~~
Bartweiss
I think that's the value proposition: rather than using a Pi Hole in your
home, you connect to this service on all your devices anywhere.

------
0xffff2
How does this even work for mobile (the major selling point AFAICT)? A few
minutes of research suggests that it's non-trivial to change my DNS server on
iOS when using my cellular data connection.

~~~
adfreelife
After creating an account there is a tutorial linking to an iOS and Android
app that provides a way to set your DNS via a VPN.

~~~
0xffff2
A VPN to where? The VPS you control? Now we are back to giving you _all_ of
our data rather than just DNS queries... It's mind blowing to me that you
expect people to pay a premium for the privilege of giving you all of their
data.

Nothing personal, but I really hope this business fails fast and hard.

------
fiatjaf
So it's a DNS service that blocks blacklisted domains?

------
dclusin
Page is giving an error

------
mrkrabo
$9/month for what essentially is a preinstalled pi-hole is a rip-off.

------
adfreelife
Does anyone know why this post would be flagged?

~~~
adfreelife
Just a follow up to my own comment here for those wondering the same or for in
the future if it happens to you. I got word from HN that the community
probably thought this post was marketing for a business, and that the
community was, understandably, wary of a new account posting their product.
Truth is I am a solo hacker and this is just a side project of mine. I made an
account with a matching name so that it was easier to determine official
answers.

TL;DR: submissions from new accounts that are flagged for any reason weigh
heavily against you, keeping you from posting or answering questions in a
timely manner. Also, it took 40 min for it to be public on New, starting on
the second page.

TL;DR:TL:DR: don't create a new account to post something.

