Ad blocking

Network-wide ad blocking may be desired to reduce ads, reduce bandwidth usage, reduce tracking, provide content filtering, and increase privacy. This can be accomplished with OpenWrt by installing and configuring one of the options below.

Adblock uses DNS based blocking for ad/abuse domains via dnsmasq, unbound, named, smartdns or kresd. It is lightweight, fast, supports a wide range of blocklist sources, offers local block/allow overrides and provides an intuitive LuCI Web UI for convenient management and monitoring. Most users can simply use this and have adequate results.

• Install: luci-app-adblock
• Package changelog/development: adblock, luci-app-adblock
• Configuration: LuCI → Services → Adblock
• Follow: documentation, forum

The high-performance ad-blocking service work with Dnsmasq, SmartDNS, and Unbound. It is designed to be lightweight in file size and RAM usage, and includes an easy to manage blocklist by LuCI Web UI.

• Install: luci-app-adblock-fast
• Configuration: LuCI → Services → Adblock-Fast
• Follow: documentation, forum

AdGuard Home is a comprehensive adblocking system with a larger installation and setup process. As is stated on their github: it operates as a DNS server that re-routes tracking domains to a “black hole”, thus preventing your devices from connecting to those servers. It's based on software they use for their public AdGuard DNS servers, and both share a lot of code.

• Install: luci-app-adguardhome
• Packages: adguardhome
• Follow: documentation, forum

Adblock-lean is a powerful and ultra-efficient adblocker for OpenWrt.

• Install: Not in the official OpenWrt repository, download link is on the GitHub page.
• Follow: documentation, forum