A network ad blocker is less mysterious than its name suggests. It is one small service that has to run somewhere on your network, all the time. A Raspberry Pi is a popular place to put it, not the only one.
What a network ad blocker does
Before any device connects to a server, it looks up the server’s address by name. That lookup is DNS, which Cloudflare describes as “the phonebook of the Internet”. A network ad blocker is a DNS server on your own network that answers “nowhere” when the name belongs to an ad or tracking domain.
Any device that uses it as its DNS server loses those ads, in every app, with nothing installed on the device itself: the TV, the console, the phone on your Wi-Fi. Two limits come with the method. It only removes ads that come from their own domains, which rules out YouTube’s (here’s why). And it only protects the devices that actually ask it.
Why the guides all start with a Raspberry Pi
The best-known network blocker, Pi-hole, runs on Linux. Its list of supported systems names Alpine, Armbian, Debian, CentOS Stream, Fedora, Raspberry Pi OS and Ubuntu, and no Windows. The same page adds: “Despite the name, you are not limited to running Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi.”
The Pi became the default because a DNS server must stay on, and a Pi draws very little. Raspberry Pi’s documentation gives a typical bare-board active current of 600 mA for a Raspberry Pi 4 and 800 mA for a Raspberry Pi 5, at 5.1 V: roughly 3 and 4 watts, by our arithmetic. The price is one more device to set up, update and look after.
A PC can do the same job
If your computer is on whenever the TV is, it can be that DNS server. Several programs do it on Windows.
| Checked 14 September 2026 | Pi-hole | AdGuard Home | Technitium DNS Server | AdHole |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on Windows | Not in its supported list | Yes | Yes | Yes (64-bit) |
| Runs on Linux and Raspberry Pi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (systemd; Raspberry Pi 4 and 5) |
| Source code | Open source (EUPL 1.2) | Open source (GPL-3.0) | Open source (GPLv3) | Not published: free proprietary software |
| Also filters inside the web pages of the computer it runs on | No | No | No | Yes |
Sources: Pi-hole, AdGuard Home platforms, Technitium.
- AdGuard Home publishes Windows builds. Its getting-started guide has you run it from an administrator command prompt and register it as a Windows service; everything else happens in its web page.
- Technitium DNS Server is a full DNS server that also blocks ads and runs on Windows.
- Pi-hole can be made to run under Windows through community projects, outside its official support.
- AdHole, our program, installs with a standard Windows installer. It sets up two filters: a DNS filter for this computer and for the devices you point to it, and an HTTPS filter for this computer’s own browsers, which also removes YouTube ads and refuses cookie banners there. It relies on public filter lists (AdGuard, HaGeZi), refreshed once a day. It is free, with no account. It is also not open source, unlike the other three, and its installer isn’t signed, so Windows warns you before running it.
Whichever you pick, the setup on the rest of the network is the same.
Pointing each device at your PC
1. Give the PC an address that doesn’t change. In your router, reserve its current address for it (the setting is usually called DHCP reservation or static lease). As TP-Link puts it, the PC “will always receive the same IP address each time it connects”. Without this, the address can change one day and every device pointed at it loses its DNS.
2. On Windows, set the network to Private. New networks start as “Public”, where the PC is hidden from other devices. Microsoft’s network settings page gives the path: Settings, Network & internet, Wi-Fi or Ethernet, your network, then “Network profile type”: Private network. AdHole needs this for the TV or the console to reach it.
3. On each device, set the DNS by hand. In the network settings of the TV, the console or the phone, switch DNS from automatic to manual and enter the PC’s address. AdHole’s dashboard shows it, under “this computer’s address”. It takes a couple of minutes per device, once. If the device also uses IPv6, set its IPv6 DNS to manual too, or turn IPv6 off on that device: otherwise it keeps asking the router. The device-by-device guide has the menus.
Why not just change one setting in the router? Because many routers don’t let you replace the DNS they hand out, or add yours behind their own, which the devices then ask first. We measured exactly that on a French ISP router: the details are here.
AdHole only answers devices on your local network: it never becomes an open resolver on the internet. It doesn’t set up your devices for you either: each one is set by hand, once.
The trade-off: the PC has to stay on
This is the real cost, and it’s worth saying plainly: devices pointed at your PC lose internet access when it is off or asleep. The TV shows a connection error until the PC wakes up, or until you switch the TV’s DNS back to automatic.
So check the PC’s sleep settings (Microsoft’s page on power settings) and ask yourself whether it’s on whenever someone watches TV. There is an energy side as well. A 2016 NRDC study put a typical desktop at 22.4 watts when idle (on, but not in use), against the 3 to 4 watts worked out above for a Pi. A gaming PC with a large graphics card draws more.
With AdHole, a few other interruptions are worth knowing:
- If it crashes, it restarts on its own. The computer it runs on falls back to the router in the meantime, but the devices pointed at it have no DNS until it’s back.
- Updates install at night, between 3 and 5 a.m. local time; if the PC is off at those hours, an update that has been waiting for more than seven days installs at the first opportunity. Filtering pauses while one installs (the terms of use allow for about thirty seconds), and devices pointed at the PC have no DNS during that time.
When a Raspberry Pi is still the better choice
- The PC sleeps, or it’s a laptop that leaves the house. Everything pointed at it goes dark with it. An always-on Pi is better.
- You turn the PC off at night and the TV is used in the morning. Same answer.
- You want nothing to depend on your main computer. A Pi on a shelf is out of the way.
A Pi doesn’t rule AdHole out: it runs on Linux with systemd, and one of its archives is built for Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. On a Pi without a desktop, the part that matters is the DNS filter, and sudo ./adhole setup -no-proxy installs only that. Pi-hole and AdGuard Home remain excellent choices there too, and they are open source.
In short
- If your PC is on whenever the TV and the console are in use, it can filter ads for the whole home. No new hardware needed.
- If it isn’t, a Raspberry Pi draws a few watts and stays on.
- Either way, set the DNS on each device rather than counting on the router, and don’t expect YouTube ads to disappear from the TV.
Sources checked on 14 September 2026 and linked in the text.