NextDNS.
This way, you can very easily filter out most of the ads on your mobile devices.
If you want to, you can also play this game on hard mode, and start blocking telemetry more aggressively. It can be done, but various apps will stop working. When that happens, you’ll unlock a fun new mni game: DNS White List Tuning.
I’m still using the services of Big Email, which means I’m the product in this setting. From a philosophical standpoint, that sucks. From a practical point of view, I don’t really see any downsides. Surely there are some that I’m just not aware of.
If they want to show me some ads, I have ublock origin and NextDNS to take care of that. What else should I know about my situation?
Aah, the pre-web internet era. You would intentionally connect to a specific BBS with its own special rules and culture. I remember a magazine that had its own BBS for its subscribers. Pretty cool stuff for its day. Although the UX wasn’t great, download speeds were abysmal, but it’s better than nothing. The other alternative was to get your software from the floppy disks that came with magazines.
That works too. I’ve had a pihole for years, and that was great as long as you’re on wifi. Also, it required a little bit of admin work, which I usually forgot to do. On the other hand, it’s really good if you want to know exactly what’s going on. Recently, I came to realize, I don’t really mind outsourcing this service to the pros.
If you’re scrolling while waiting on a bus stop or while sitting on a train, you need to use something else. I guess you could connect to your pi from anywhere, maybe even set up your VPN and all that. I’m sure there’s a away around that problem, but that would obviously require some reading, setting up, tinkering and admin work. Technically doable, but I just didn’t feel like doing all that. I’m definitely not an IT pro, which means that I end up screwing things up in hilarious ways all the time.
Also, opening up my pi to the whole internet is a scary thought. If I set up my pi like that, that would definitely require quite a bit of reading. That’s what ultimately lead me to pay for this service.