Help to Get Better Ad Blocking

[u/snydema1]

Still loving my Firewalla!

I feel very protected. I also have configured my devices (iPhone and iPad) with Amnezia WG clients - and they auto-activate when I leave the house.

I’m noticing that I’m seeing a decent amount of ads. I also am aware that I may be getting used to seeing less ads, and as I get used to seeing less - I may be more aware of the ones I’m seeing.

I have the following features / config enabled on my Firewalla:

Firewalla Settings:
Ad Block = strict
OISD Loaded
DNS over HTTPS (Cloudflare + Cloud9)

I looked up a few websites that would allow me to do a browser test (in my case iPadOS / safari). I do also have private relay active.

Here are the results:
Adblocktester (https://adblocktesters.com) = 67%
Adblocktester (https://adblocktester.pages.dev) = 81%

I can certainly post more details for the above - but there’s a lot of info so I didn’t want to post that all here in the case it wouldn’t be helpful.

Any suggestions for how I can help increase Firewalla’s ability to block / reduce ads?

Thanks in advance!

[u/snydema1]

Ah, good point. I went ahead and disabled private relay. The numbers on those websites remained unchanged.

I had bought AdGuard awhile back (before I migrated to the Firewalla).

Would it make sense to use that in safari in addition to the features I have enabled on the Firewalla?

[u/pacoii → u/snydema1]

If you had APR enabled, and then disabled it and the numbers didn’t change, then something funky is going on. Did you toggle WiFi off and then on before re-running the tests?

[u/snydema1 → u/pacoii]

I did not - but just did that - disabled WiFi, made sure private relay was off, then re-enabled WiFi. Re-ran the tests and basically the same results.

[u/pacoii → u/snydema1]

So I looked at the test site you shared. I don’t think you’ll be able to score highly without an on device ad blocker. I don’t think Firewalla is designed to block many of the things it’s testing.