For years I’ve wanted a Raspberry Pi, but I didn’t have a practical application.
The other day, I decided to use one as a whole-home ad-blocker via the PiHole project. I ordered a Pi Zero W (wireless) kit via Amazon for $36.
Despite looking at photos of the Pi Zero with human hands for scale, I was still suprised at how teensy this thing is!
Anyway, the setup was super easy. The OS came on a micro-SD card via NOOBS and that was a smooth process.
I plugged it into my main TV and it properly determined the resolution.
My AirPort Extreme change involved just changing its DNS servers. Nothing fancy and no troubles whatsoever from that corner.
2 January 2018 Note: Turns out my Airport Express, which extends my home wireless network’s range, has its own DNS settings. I set these to point to the Raspberry Pi this weekend when I discovered this.
There were just no problems with anything.
Now I’m going to get a Pi 3 B as a retro gaming (Nintendo) station.
3 February 2018 Update: Going strong as my whole-home ad blocker.
9 March 2018 Update: No problems. This thing just runs. I’m a little sickened by how often my Amazon Echo Dots phone home. So much accumulation of blocked attempts that it was skewing my block stats, so I whitelisted the site. Geez.