January 10, 2021
OpenBSD | OpenBSD-unwind | FreeBSD | DragonflyBSD | NetBSD | SystemD/Linux | Alpine Linux
Download Link: unbound-adblock.sh | Previous Releases: Archives
Changelog: changelog.txt
Man Page: man.txt
Beta Snapshots: beta
Errata (instructions are within patch file):
001 , 002 ,
003 , 004 ,
005
Unbound-adblock is a fast, flexible, easy to use DNS firewall utility. It allows you to block undesireable online content across your entire network. unbound-adblock works even with locked-down/walled-garden devices that are incapable of using traditional content filtering methods. unbound-adblock is known to to boost web browsing speed and increase battery life on many devices.
In short: unbound-adblock is able to block huge amounts of online trackers, malware, fake sites, pop ups and other annoying garbage.
unbound-adblock takes a different approach from that of traditional browser-based adblockers such as uBlock Origin, Adblock Plus etc. As such, use of unbound-adblock incurs no additional CPU utilization on client-side devices as all the heavy lifting is done by the DNS server. In many cases it can actually reduce client-side CPU usage due to the filtering/removal of heavy ad and tracking scripts on the web. For devices with limited resources, unbound-adblock can be a breath of fresh air.
unbound-adblock works best when used in conjunction with pf-badhost
To receive notifications for new unbound-adblock releases, send an email to announce@geoghegan.ca with this subject line: "subscribe unbound-adblock"
If you believe my work has provided value to you, and if you have the means to, please consider donating.
If you want to donate, but aren't able to use PayPal, please get in contact with me and we can figure out a more suitable method.
I would like to give thanks to the following people for their donations of time, resources and/or money to the project:
Thanks to Mischa Peters and OpenBSD Amsterdam for sponsoring the project! They were kind enough to offer the project free computing resources to help facilitate development and testing of unbound-adblock.
Thanks to Sean Davies for his numerous code and manpage improvements. Thanks for the all the diffs!
If you've written or created something related to unbound-adblock and would like to have your link listed here then please send me an email.
Q-1: How can I help the project?
A-1: You can find bugs, donate, or tell your friends about unbound-adblock.
Q-2: Will this run on Linux?
A-2: Yes, unbound-adblock should run on pretty much any Unix-like OS.
Q-3: How do I check unbound-adblock's status?
A-3: By default, unbound-adblock sends all log messages to syslog and also prints them to stderr. A copy of the two most recently generated blocklists are stored within '/var/log/unbound-adblock'. These behaviors can be modified using commandline options.
Additionally, most cron daemons are configured to mail the cron job results/output to the cron job owner. If you have your local mail system configured on your machine, you can configure the status reports to be forwarded to your main email account. Please check the documentation relevant to your system for more info, as this is beyond the scope of unbound-adblock's instuctions.
Q-4: Why should I use this instead of [/etc/hosts, PiHole, dnsmasq etc]
A-4: I'm not here to tell you what to do. I made something that fits my needs and brings me (and hopefully others) joy. I've made an effort to strike a balance between brutal functional minimalism and friendly enough user interface. If it does not bring you joy or satisfaction, then feel free to improve it or seek out greener pastures.
Q-5: Can't I just run this as root?
A-5: I'd tell you to stop being annoying, but you have a right to shoot yourself in the foot. You can use the '-D' option to disable UID checking.