Adding block list to hosts file

Question

Ubuntu 21.04. Linux newbie here. For a few months I’ve been thinking about setting up a pi-hole to block ads. But a few days ago I read about just adding a block list to the hosts file. I wasn’t aware of this option. It sounds a lot easier than setting up a pi-hole.

I found some ad block lists here https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm and here https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/blob/master/hosts. Other quality lists I should know about?

When the block list is added to the hosts file, is that about the same as having a pi-hole? What is the advantage of a pi-hole over a block list in the hosts file?

Looks like adding the list to the hosts file is pretty easy. But I’m a newbie, so there may be some important things I don’t know. What do I need to know/do before adding a block list to my hosts file?

Yes, I’ll make a copy of my original hosts file before editing.

Answer 1

Advantage of using Pi-Hole:

• Can be used by all other devices, not just your computer when using hosts file
• Have a lot of options, like devices grouping, and block/whitelist rule depending on the device/group
• Can be easily turned on/off
• Whitelisting/blacklisting is also easy, you just see recent requests and click a button to toggle block status of individual domains
• The important thing in Pi-Hole is you can block by regex, for example you can block *.instagram.com but if you use hosts you have to explicitly add all Instagram subdomains if you want to block them!