Ads can be one of the internet’s more annoying things, and there are few things worse than watching a flash animation for deodorant suck up all your bandwidth. While you have plenty of software solutions to block ads, you can also do it on a deeper level with a Raspberry Pi.
This projects turns your Raspberry Pi into a wireless access point and then installs software that makes ads time out. Then, you route your traffic through the Raspberry Pi, and that blocks ads on all your devices, from your tablet to your game console. Head over to Adafruit for the full guide.
Raspberry Pi as an Ad Blocking Access Point [Adafruit]
Comments
8 responses to “Block Ads On All Your Devices With A Raspberry Pi”
Something to consider from a web dev’s point of view: Ads pay for the content you enjoy.
While they suck, and nobody is denying that.. Even those who profit of them (though many try to make them ‘better’).. The truth is that it’s very much like shoplifting. You come into someone else’s store, they don’t expect you to buy anything just to browse around and not mess everything up.. And you just take advantage of it simply because some ads ‘offend your eyes’..
Hell. You yourself Thorin [who has no @ tag because this is simply syndicated content on which you will never see my comments], is entirely funded by ads. How would you like to be told tomorrow ‘sorry, we can’t afford to employ you in any capacity any more because ad blocker usage rose and we didn’t get the CPI/PPC we needed’?
For what they actually end up providing us on the web (nearly everything) – they are an incredibly small nuisance. Either put up with it, or if you find a particular sites ads too offensive in some way, don’t use the site.
To me, even though I see the allure (no pun at your company name intended) in ad blockers, it’s simply not worth messing with someones livelihood, at least if you value the results of their job.
As far as I know, most are paid per click, not per view (except for YouTube ads). So what is the difference between blocking and not clicking? Blocking them probably saves the advertisers some bandwidth.
Agree with you 100%.
I think it is funny that those who use ad blockers are also some of the first to complain when a free site puts up a paywall and asks you to pay for their content.
No, it’s more like walking into a shop and not reading their posters
That would be true.. if you looking at their posters somehow allowed them to stay in business..
Complain about ads? Then start coughing up the cash for every website you visit. If it wasn’t for ads people would try and charge us e.g 0.05c to visit a website… Would soon ad up
If those at lifehacker do not like ads, then why cover your site in commonwealth bank ads!?!?!
You see Commonwealth Ads….. ohh man… I need to stop looking at womens underwear ads
Possibly a more relevant example might be visiting the museum, and not putting a coin in the donation box.
Blocking the ads is no more like shoplifting than refusing to watch the trailers at the beginning of a film, because there is no obligation to do so, it’s as simple as that.
Certainly, if were that people are circumnavigating a paywall, then that is stealing, but that is not what we are debating here.
Quite frankly, if you are dependent on ads to run your webserver, you need to be looking at better streams of revenue, because click-through ads aren’t going to cut it, and never have. Create streams of revenue such as merchandise, pro subscriptions, etc.
If you need the money for your site to survive, simply put a Donate button or a paywall on – if your content is unique and interesting enough, people will buy – if they don’t, then you are getting the unspoken but blunt message that your site is neither unique nor interesting enough to compel people to part with their money.
Given people will part with money for Crazy Frog ringtones, the bar isn’t set very high.,
I’m not against ads, but freedom goes both ways – you have the freedom to place ads, and the viewer has the freedom to ignore them. I run Ad Blocker, and to date, I’ve blocked about 3 ads in the last year, simply because the ads annoyed the shit out of me, the rest I’ve learned to ignore, so it raises the argument that ads tend to be not that effective anyway.