Gone Ad Free Home Network

Last weekend I happened to buy Xiaomi TV stick as my Chromecast gen 1 died on me plus it had no bluetooth to connect to my soundbar. Plus not introducing my Haier Smart TV would be an injustice to actual saviours of the day, simply put, tv with copy pasted any chinese TV UI with worst in every aspect performance that achieving simple apk installation might take ages.

Anyways, since all complains sorted I plugged in and setup new TV stick, coming back to remote control era was a positive change as on chromecast I had to heavily depend on my mobile phone.

The Problem?

I happen to consume free content and so I was using freeware apps to watch online content on TV stick and it happened. Started getting bombarded with 30 seconds full screen Ads followed by same Ad full screen banner before "x" appearing and then another banner with "x" after 5 seconds before I could actually return to what I was doing. To add salt to the pain had to select those "x" by navigating via remote control. And some Ads were not designed keeping TVs in mind and were unable to let me navigate to "x". Hence the only way to force stop the app, reopen the app and return to what I was doing.

Heroes to the scene..!

All hope lost, nothing left except to smash the remote on the wall with bloody tears flowing through eyes (just a metaphor not suffering from Haemolacria). Then suddenly a ray of hope shined on me with 3 silhouettes standing before the light: My beloved linux powered router, an old 4 GB flash drive, and yours truly Diversion.

The process involved formatting the USB to ext4 as linux readable Disk type. Connecting formatted usb with the router running few scripts to install and configure Diversion on router, couple of router reboots and la fin!

One might wonder whats the catch with Diversion, you can simply put gibberish DNS IP to save yourself from Ads. Well the solution might work on http Ads but not on https. Diversion solves that solution.

Is there a catch for you?

Since configuring Adblock on router the impact is home network wide, all my android devices, windows PC and any guest connecting to my wifi are free of Ads. Streaming and page loading is drastically faster. Mobile phones are depleting less battery when sleeping overnight with WiFi connected. Lastly watching Youtube with 0 Ads.

You dont really need to have an expensive router, it can be a laptop, raspberry pi or any device running linux capable to act as a router with its Wireless module. You just need to install Diversion with Entware and leave the rest to your configured system.

Diversion besides Adblocking provides ready to install scripts to address further network problems like QoS of network, logging and reports and alot more.

Conclusion

I am not against Ads as it allows me and millions other to consume free content but lately these Ads have gone seriously abusive. This non friendly Ads UI, unskippable consecutive Youtube Ads, lastly youtube stepping down your streaming quality to 360p intelligently due to slow network but still buffering a skippable Ad in HD quality no matter how much of your time is wasted in buffering the Ad instead of actual content you intend to watch.

Anyways I am at peace as of now in a safe haven against the horde of Ads with just a little effort over the weekend.