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This $20 computer behind my router solved the most annoying problems on my network

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This $20 computer behind my router solved the most annoying problems on my network

When people complain about their home network, they usually blame slow Wi-Fi or dead zones. But the real problem isn't speed; it's the noise. Every device you own—your phone, your smart TV, your thermostat, even your printer—spends its idle time serving ads and reporting data back to companies you never actually agreed to talk to.

You can fix this with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. For about $15, you can run Pi-hole, a tool that intercepts DNS requests for your entire network to cut off both ads and appliance telemetry in one move. If you want more headroom, a Pi 4 or any old PC will work, but the Zero 2 W is usually plenty. By moving your blocking to the network level, you stop the noise before it even reaches your devices.

Normally, when a device on your network tries to connect to a website, it connects to a DNS server and asks "What is the IP address for this website?" The DNS Server then sends back an IP address for the website you were trying to reach.

A Pi-hole works as a DNS sinkhole. It sits between the devices on your network and a DNS server. From that position, it is able to prevent certain requests from being sent to the DNS server, and instead it just replies "nowhere."

In effect, you can prevent devices from ever loading specific websites by using a Pi-hole to ensure no device on your network can fetch the IP for that website.


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