Pfblockerng

[Jenifer Griffard]

There is a wide range of excellent solutions for blocking ads, malware, tracking cookies, and other unwanted network traffic for home labs and home users. There are two open-source solutions available for download today, pfSense pfBlockerng and Pihole, that are each great solutions in their own right. However, each has pros and cons that may suit some better than others. This post will consider pfSense pfBlockerng vs Pihole and see which features and functionality. Before considering pfSense pfBlockerNG vs Pihole, what are they?

The first solution we are going to consider is pfSense pfBlockerng. What is pfSense pfblockerng? First of all, to avoid confusion, pfBlockerNG is not pfSense. The pfSense open-source firewall solution is a fully-featured firewall/router providing enterprise features. It allows businesses and home users to secure networks, create VPN tunnels, do advanced routing, remote access, DNS, DHCP, etc. many other core network services and features.

As you will note, there will be two versions of the pfBlockerNG package returned, the pfBlockerNG package and the pfBlockerNG devel package. In most cases, the pfBlockerNG devel package is the package you want to install since it includes the latest and greatest features and functionality.

The pfSense pfBlockerNG package works by setting the pfSense interfaces you want to monitor with pfBlockerNG where the inbound configuration is the Internet connection. Like Pihole, pfBlockerNG can use lists that contain lists that can be used to block unwanted tracking, ads, malicious sites, etc.

One of the cool things that the pfBlockerNG package can do is block IPs and lists of IPs. As part of the solution, you can block lists of IP addresses and also block IPs based on the geolocation of the IP address.

Yes, you can. There is nothing to prevent running pfSense as your main firewall/router and having Pi-hole serve as the DNS servers for clients who use the pfSense box as their gateway. The pfSense box would perform all other firewall/routing duties, while the Pi-hole would serve as a DNS server that performs DNS sinkholing.

I like pfSense pfBlockerNG and Pinhole to protect home and other networks from unwanted traffic, including malicious traffic, ads, tracking, etc. Both projects have tremendous value in your network to help protect your traffic. However, each has its strengths and weaknesses as a solution, and it comes down to what you prefer and what your individual needs and use cases include.

I have run both pfSense pfBlockerNG and Pi-hole in several environments, including the home lab environment. I like the features found in both solutions, and some things could be better about both. Hopefully, this pfSense pfBlockerng vs Pihole comparison of pros and cons will help any trying to decide which solution to use and the benefits and drawbacks for each. It is great to have choices. Both pfBlockerNG and Pi-hole are excellent and give us the options to block unwanted traffic across the network. Which one will you decide to use?

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