I installed Raspbian Stretch Lite (I wasn’t sure if pi-hole is supported under Buster). My ad-blocker pi-hole runs on a RPi 3B+ and has a bigger card, but there was no need for something that would not handle much traffic. I bought a RPi Zero W, with pibow case, power supply and 8 GB SD card. I’ll describe how I made the second pi-hole and then how I integrated it into this set up. The router doesn’t allow DNS settings to be assigned to each device. Yes, I know I can have the pi-hole doing DHCP and I have run it this way with a different router but this configuration is how I have it right now. DNS points to the ad-blocking pi-hole which is wired to the router.

I have the Orbi router doing DHCP assignment (static IPs for some stuff and a range for dynamic assignment). So, can a pi-hole be used to make a (free) child-safe internet experience? Yes! The trick is how to do that while maintaining a full-bodied internet for everyone else (and maintain ad-blocking for everyone). If the words “by Disney” alone were not enough to trouble anybody, 1) it works by doing an ARP poisoning attack on the router, 2) Disney (or whoever) would be logging all requests from the network, and 3) the free version is limited and you have to pay for full protection. I have an Orbi mesh from Netgear and this has two parental control options: “Live Parenting Control” which is seemingly being deprecated as they push “Circle” by Disney. Sure, there are ways to do this in most routers but they are not ideal.

I wondered if it would be possible to use a pi-hole to make a child-safe internet experience to protect the little people in the house. It’s great! Not only are ads blocked, but it speeds up internet browsing because… the ads do not load. I have been running a pi-hole to block ads on my home network for a while.

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