They say necessity is the mother of invention, and apparently, the skyrocketing price of Raspberry Pi boards is the mother of realizing you don't need a $60 computer to block ads. One ZDNet writer, facing limited bandwidth and a sudden aversion to overkill, decided to build an ad-blocking solution using an ESP32-S3 board that costs less than a fancy sandwich.
The project, which took mere minutes to set up, uses the ESP32_AdBlocker software to create a DNS sinkhole. For the uninitiated, a DNS sinkhole is like a bouncer for your internet traffic - except instead of checking IDs, it checks whether an address is on a list of known ad servers and then tells the browser to buzz off. The board itself is a marvel of modern engineering: a dual-core processor running at up to 240 MHz, 520 KB of RAM, and up to 16MB of flash storage. In other words, it's a computer you can balance on your fingertip, which is exactly what the author did.
The setup process involves downloading the Arduino IDE, configuring it for the ESP32, connecting the board to your PC (using the correct USB port, because there are two - because why make anything simple?), and uploading the software. Then you connect to the board's Wi-Fi access point, point it to your router, and specify a blocklist URL. Finally, you configure your devices to use the board's IP address (192.168.4.1) as their DNS server. The result: ads vanish from most of the web, saving bandwidth and sanity.
But there are limitations. YouTube ads, being served from the same servers as the videos you actually want to watch, are immune to this trick. The approach also doesn't work with newer IPv6 addresses. For a temporary solution on a limited-bandwidth connection, however, it works beautifully. If you want a permanent fix, you could always spring for a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W running PiHole - but that'll set you back at least $15 for the board, plus a microSD card. Different horses for different courses, as they say - though in this case, the horse costs $7.