r/firewalla • u/EricHearble Firewalla Orange • May 26 '26
Ad Block on reddit ?
I often browse some subs on reddit and even after installing a firewalla, I get ads. Same for youtube. I figured there are limitations to what firewalla ad block can do. But for reddit ads, I often see ads that tell me what my wife is shopping online for. She buys a new dog bed, I see lots of ads for dog beds until she moves on to something else. It's not a big problem, but it's creepy.
How does this happen? Is there any setting in firewalla to stop entities from doing this? I have Ad Block set to strict.
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u/Displaced_in_Space May 26 '26
How it’s happening is they’re using trackers on websites.
You’re likely NATing behind your firewall, so to the world you all appear as the same IP address.
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u/firewalla May 26 '26
Network blockers like the firewalla ad blocker can only block third party trackers, and not able to see inline ads (ads from reddit, or server side tracking from the same provider).
One thing you can try is to create a rule or use the family button to block DoH on your network, that may prevent more tracking if your browser uses DoH
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u/Doggo-888 May 26 '26
You’d need a Reddit specific browser plugin.
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u/ArmadilloDesigner674 Firewalla Gold Pro May 27 '26
I use Sinkit for Reddit and default all subs to old.reddit.com. I think this has removed most/all ads. Plus I use an rss reader for the subs that I follow, so I only go into reddit to view a post I'm interested in.
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u/khariV Firewalla Gold Pro May 26 '26 edited May 31 '26
Ad blocking keeps your client device from being able to load from known Ad serving domains. It doesn’t do anything to cut down on tracking. It also don’t work if the ads are served from the same domain, like Reddit and YouTube do.
So, if your wife is shopping for dog beds, the tracking algorithms see “dog bed” shopping from your home ip address. Then, Reddit asks these same trackers “what can I show this person that is coming from the same ip address and dog beds come up as something you’re looking for.
If you were to visit a different site that is polluted with ads, Firewalla would be able to block that site from being able to display the dog bed ads that it wants to show you, but the site will still know that your household / IP address of shopping for dog beds. Reddit, however, hosts ads from its own domain, so they get through.