# Ads don't get blocked in Chrome - works fine in other browsers

**URL:** <https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [March 3, 2020, 9:48am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018 "2020-03-03T09:48:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 16\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 9:48am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/1 "2020-03-03T09:48:50Z")

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## Expected Behaviour:

Should block ads in Chrome

## Actual Behaviour:

Doesn't block ads in Chrome, but works fine in Edge and Firefox (on the same machine).

I have this behaviour on a laptop running a relatively fresh (2 weeks) install of windows 10 (everything is up to date).  
It seems like it blocks ads fine at first (grey squares) but than it reloads and shows an ad.  
I opened the same page with ads in chrome, firefox and edge parallel and only chrome has that issue. I have no clue what could cause this.

I have another laptop with Win10 and chrome and it works fine there.

BTW Pihole works fine on all of my other devices in the network. The DNS is directly provided by the wifi router.

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**Author:** ![PromoFaux](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/user_avatar/discourse.pi-hole.net/promofaux/32/1545_2.png) [@PromoFaux](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/PromoFaux)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:04am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/3 "2020-03-03T10:04:05Z")

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Hi @anon55913113, please be more descriptive with your response... as it stands, you're not really saying anything 🙂

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**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:27am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/5 "2020-03-03T10:27:50Z")

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Wow thanks, that was really helpful.

I disabled DoH and now it seems to work. I did never hear of it to be honest. Sometimes to only need the search term.

In fact I guess/hope this also solves another long lasting issue which I add with chrome not realiable connecting to my home assistant instance.

For other users that face the same issue:

Go to `chrome://flags/#dns-over-https` and disable `Secure DNS lookups`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:37am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/7 "2020-03-03T10:37:05Z")

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There is one thing that is still strange to me:

The other laptop with chrome also had the same setting for DoH. Is there any explanation why it blocked the ads fine there?

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**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 11:03am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/9 "2020-03-03T11:03:29Z")

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I think its bad that they show „default“ in the dropdown menu without telling which is the current default setting (for you on that machine).

Just one last noob question as this is still new to me.  
Is it a security issue to disable that function?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:05pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/11 "2020-03-03T22:05:12Z")

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While reading a bit more about DoH, I found some information about setting up the secondary DNS.  
I always thought it would be a backup, but just found out that it is not.

> [@Why should Pi-hole be my only DNS server?](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/why-should-pi-hole-be-my-only-dns-server/3376):
>
> Reduced Ad Blocking Capability The main reason you should Pi-hole as your only DNS server is that you will see increased performance in the blocking of ads. If you have two DNS servers (Pi-hole and something else), your network clients may not always query Pi-hole for name resolution. If a query happens to be answered from a non-Pi-hole DNS server, your block lists will not apply (since that DNS server doesn't know about them). All Queries Need To Go Through Pi-hole First Since other DNS serv…

The thing is I have pihole for my than a year and never had the feeling that is just the secondary DNS, which would mean no blocked ads. I used 8.8.8.8

[This](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/fyi-google-chrome-experimenting-with-same-provider-dns-over-https-upgrade/23422/8) basically tells me that is only necessary to disable DoH in chrome when it detects a known DNS server.  
So the reason why this might not be an issue for others is that they probably followed the suggestions in the link above and did not use a second DNS. In conclusion chrome should not use DoH.

I already deleted my secondary DNS server. However I’m a little bit concerned about what happens when my pihole instance goes down for some reason. No secondary DNS, no surfing websites. I know about the option to set up another pihole but this would be too high maintenance for me.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PromoFaux](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/user_avatar/discourse.pi-hole.net/promofaux/32/1545_2.png) [@PromoFaux](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/PromoFaux)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/12 "2020-03-03T22:12:34Z")

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> [@h4nc](#):
>
> I know about the option to set up another pihole but this would be too high maintenance for me.

Before moving my pi-hole install to a docker container on my synology NAS, I ran it on the same Raspberry Pi 3b for 3 years, and the only downtime I had was due to me accidentally pulling the power cable out when I moved it once.

Obviously that's only anecdotal evidence that "everything will be fine" with just one!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:21pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/13 "2020-03-03T22:21:59Z")

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I run it as an add-on in home assistant and had two sd card corruptions so far. So it would be bad in that case.

I just have to remember that I don’t have that secondary dns server any more if I run into related issues (no websites).

But I plan to switch to a nuc soon anyway.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PromoFaux](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/user_avatar/discourse.pi-hole.net/promofaux/32/1545_2.png) [@PromoFaux](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/PromoFaux)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:29pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/15 "2020-03-03T22:29:32Z")

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> [@h4nc](#):
>
> But I plan to switch to a nuc soon anyway.

Definitely worth looking at the docker container when you do. I've found it a very nice way of installing.

I've no experience with HA, so can't really suggest anything there. But if you're running on a Pi and are facing multiple SD card corruption issues, I would highly recommend checking your power adapter is up to scratch. One of the biggest causes of SD corruption i've seen is a power supply being too weak.

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/#pi-power](https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/#pi-power)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RamSet](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/user_avatar/discourse.pi-hole.net/ramset/32/3497_2.png) [@RamSet](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/RamSet)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:31pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/16 "2020-03-03T22:31:29Z")

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> [@PromoFaux](#):
>
> I would highly recommend checking your power adapter is up to scratch.

**+1 on that.**

I was going through about 1-2 cards a year because of bad (poor) power supply.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 6:09am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/17 "2020-03-04T06:09:04Z")

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I use a genuine raspi power supply so that should be fine. Both corruptions happened during while updating HA. It wasn’t able to start any more.  
The sd card wasn’t broken, but I had to reflash it.

Btw Did I use the term as card corruption wrong? Does it have to be defective to be called like that?

Edit: After setting pihole as my only dns Server it seems like I‘m having a performance boost. Feels like pages open up faster. Does that make sense or only a placebo?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RamSet](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/user_avatar/discourse.pi-hole.net/ramset/32/3497_2.png) [@RamSet](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/RamSet)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 4:35pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/18 "2020-03-04T16:35:36Z")

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> [@h4nc](#):
>
> Does that make sense or only a placebo?

It could be a combination of the two.

Pi-hole caches the DNS requests and does improve the speed when a cached DNS reply is returned.

There is also the possibility that the queries was split randomly between Pi-hole and whatever else was the DNS and the secondary one, could be indeed slower.

You can use [NameBench](https://code.google.com/archive/p/namebench/downloads) to actually see any differences between answer times on several/custom DNS servers.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 9:35am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/19 "2020-03-05T09:35:41Z")

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Thanks for your suggestions. I wasn't able to run the tool on my mac to a ran it on an older windows pc.  
As a conclusion I want to share my results:

First I ran a complete test with all the DNS servers available in the tool. This took a while and the result was that the 8.8.8.8 was best (49ms). Pihole had a bad result (840ms).

So I ran the test again, but this time only for pihole and 8.8.8.8. Probably have to mention that my pihole uses 8.8.8.8.  
In this case pihole had much better results: pihole 35ms, google 50ms.

Same settings, another run: pihole 36ms, google 650ms (Note: shares-cache with current primary DNS).  
So that might me the reason why it was slower and feels much faster now, right?

However there was another test with this confusing result:  
google 47ms, Pihole 845ms (Note: A backup DNS server for this system, Slower replica of 8.8.8.8)

Also testet: pihole and 1.1.1.1  
Result: both around 22ms  
Ran severals tests, with alternating wins of both servers.

So the tests with pihole and 8.8.8.8 vary a bit, but most of the times the result sees pihole as the best option. In fact the variation of the tests makes sense to me, because this is what I experienced.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RamSet](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/user_avatar/discourse.pi-hole.net/ramset/32/3497_2.png) [@RamSet](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/RamSet)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/20 "2020-03-09T17:20:03Z")

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No matter how you look at it, you are (in the end) at the mercy of what ever you use for upstream (google, cloudfare, opendns) and the speed your connection delivers the query and received the reply to/from those servers.

For best experience I recommend this: [Redirecting...](https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/unbound/)

Not only you bypass anything that's public and (who knows) overloaded but also cache stuff faster.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![h4nc](https://discourse-cdn.pi-hole.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@h4nc](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/h4nc)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/21 "2020-03-09T22:16:07Z")

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Interesting, but I ran pihole as an addon in Home Assistant (formally known as hassio), so I think changes like that are not possible in that case.

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**Author:** ![system](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/uploads/default/original/3X/7/c/7c8792f649eeb921c5d2b4c41564ffa873d9a2b8.png) [@system](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/ads-dont-get-blocked-in-chrome-works-fine-in-other-browsers/29018/22 "2020-03-30T22:16:11Z")

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