I’m going to reject that criticism in this particular case. PiHole is a significantly more complex setup than Tailscale or ZeroTier. While I agree that it is beyond expectations for the “average person”, so is PiHole.
An OpenVPN server on a dynamic IP address is not that far beyond the skillset of the average PiHole user, especially if they are using an open source router with OpenVPN and DDNS preinstalled.
Tailscale or ZeroTier are well within the capabilities of a PiHole user.
I have tried it and while it works, DNS adblocking (and the hassle to remember to turn on the VPN for browsing) doesn’t works as good nor is as smooth as using a browser with AdBlock support, or Ublock Origin extension.
Do you have an iOS device? I remember mentioning battery drain issues with either Zerotier or Tailscale due to poor background process management with iOS.
Zerotier does not use wireguard and even in Android I can see a slightly bigger drain while using a VPN app, as it is using resources in the background after all (you can easily see that with adb or a rooted device), if you are not a battery freak then that’s fine I guess, I live in a 3rd world country where I can seed torrents 24/7 and ISP will never care, and VPN are a hassle to me at best, I only use them when I needed, AKA when I want to bypass CGNAT and access my Synology NAS/Plex server.
I heavily debloated my Nvidia Shield TV and whenever I activate Proton VPN I can see it takes its resources which might affect my also heavily customized Kodi setup lol, that’s why I don’t like to run VPNs there either.
That’s not a great suggestion for the stated use case of a mobile device which, presumably, will be leaving the pihole’s network frequently.
Tailscale, zerotier, or any other VPN server on your home network can keep your mobile device on your pihole network regardless of physical location.
This is not something the average person does, or is even technically capable of doing.
I’m going to reject that criticism in this particular case. PiHole is a significantly more complex setup than Tailscale or ZeroTier. While I agree that it is beyond expectations for the “average person”, so is PiHole.
An OpenVPN server on a dynamic IP address is not that far beyond the skillset of the average PiHole user, especially if they are using an open source router with OpenVPN and DDNS preinstalled.
Tailscale or ZeroTier are well within the capabilities of a PiHole user.
I have tried it and while it works, DNS adblocking (and the hassle to remember to turn on the VPN for browsing) doesn’t works as good nor is as smooth as using a browser with AdBlock support, or Ublock Origin extension.
Always-on VPN works well on my device. But I agree, native ad blocking is important.
Do you have an iOS device? I remember mentioning battery drain issues with either Zerotier or Tailscale due to poor background process management with iOS.
Android. Never noticed a problem with zerotier, but I will admit that I’m usually using a commercial VPN rather than my own zerotier network.
I’ve used tailscale, but not enough to confirm or deny battery issues.
AFAIK, they all use Wireguard, though, so if there is a problem with one, it’s likely a problem for all of them.
Zerotier does not use wireguard and even in Android I can see a slightly bigger drain while using a VPN app, as it is using resources in the background after all (you can easily see that with adb or a rooted device), if you are not a battery freak then that’s fine I guess, I live in a 3rd world country where I can seed torrents 24/7 and ISP will never care, and VPN are a hassle to me at best, I only use them when I needed, AKA when I want to bypass CGNAT and access my Synology NAS/Plex server.
I heavily debloated my Nvidia Shield TV and whenever I activate Proton VPN I can see it takes its resources which might affect my also heavily customized Kodi setup lol, that’s why I don’t like to run VPNs there either.