Chris Wiegman
Prior to moving back to Apple we had used a number of services to reduce our exposure to surveillance. This included Pi-hole, NextDNS and others. While each service has its pros and cons each failed pretty miserably at one level or another leaving me always searching, not just for something “better” but for something that simply works in the first place.
Of course the ultimate solution to the problem would be sufficient regulation to outlaw the collection of data that so many companies feel entitled to but, let’s face it, that isn’t going to happen. It’s up to us to do our best, as a result, to limit our exposure.
I liked Pi-hole, the most common solution most folks suggest. It’s downfall for me was what it simply isn’t the right solution if you’re on the road more than you’re at home. Frankly, this is where most self-hosted solutions fail in general, but that’s for another pot.
NextDNS seemed like the perfect solution at first to this problem. It works like a hosted Pi-hole and let me apply it in such a way that it didn’t matter where I was working from. The catch was it simply wasn’t reliable. Instead of growing to a reliable service, NextDNS quickly because what seemed to be abandonware and caused us so many headaches in the process.
Today we’re using Apple’s Private Relay on all our devices. Like everything else it has its issues, including that it runs on Cloudflare, but it mostly seems to work. As I look at another Linux machine, though, I’m thinking I’m going to have to change this again and this time I don’t know where I’ll go.
Privacy isn’t easy when the whole tech industry is designed to exploit you rather than sell to you.