On iOS, with Private Relay turned on and with the setting: BLOCK_ICLOUD_PR=false, I'd expect ads on cnn.com or yahoo.com to be blocked in browsers.
On iOS, with Private relay turned off, I'd expect ads on cnn.com and yahoo.com in browsers.
Actual Behaviour:
Ads are not being blocked on iOS. When I go to: Test Ad Block - Toolz on my laptop and test ad block-ability, I get 91%. I have my Pihole set as the DNS server and is the only DNS set in all devices.
When I go to that same site on my iPhone, in Safari, Firefox, and Brave, I only get 54%. I also see ads on yahoo.com and cnn.com
Debug Token:
64TkbTf7
I guess I just assumed the Pihole was working on all devices but it doesn't seem like it's working on my iPhone but "seems" to be working on my laptop? I've done the dig tests and done the dnsleak tests and the ad block tests, like the one mentioned above, and they all return the expected positive results indicating the Pihole and Unbound are blocking things, but I'm not 100% certain they are since I'm still seeing tons and tons of ads on ad-riddled sites. I also notice some SERVFAIL responses inside of the Pihole queries.
The behavior should be the opposite. With Pi-hole filtering DNS queries, you should not see ads on cnn.com at least (I don't visit yahoo, so can't confirm how that site serves ads).
This is not a reasonable expectation. With these settings (Private Relay active), your Safari browser is using a DNS server other than Pi-hole, and Pi-hole will not be involved in DNS transactions from that browser.
Well, I derived these choices from searching here and finding similar situations to mine. I enabled that setting for Private Relay because I read that with it turned on (which it is by default) it's bypassing the Pihole.
My goal is not bypass the Pihole at all on my iPhone.
I also don't frequent yahoo.com. I only go there to test ad blocking since that site is littered with ads everywhere.
All network devices using Pi-hole? Or, some devices or browsers (i.e. Safari) using a different DNS than Pi-hole and not routing their DNS queries through Pi-hole?
All devices using the Pihole with Unbound as the resolver.
One thing I did notice is that with PR turned on and off, I see my iPhone in the Pihole query log. So with it turned on or off, the phone is still reaching the Pihole but ads are still not being blocked.
I recently had to set back up my Pihole + Unbound after a move and there have been several complications...many of which I posted about on here, hah. I thought I had everything resolved last night but then today I noticed ads on my iPhone (using the Pihole as DNS) that should have easily been blocked. I then went to the same site on my PC (also with the Pihole as the sole DNS) and they were indeed blocked.
Does my debug token indicate anything off or wrong with my setup?
I have tried doing this and it doesn't seem to make any difference in what I'm experiencing.
I don't need Private Relay on. I haven't ever used it, really. I just am at a loss as to why it seems my iPhone isn't blocking ads for the same sites that other devices are on the same network with the same DNS settings.
I was just testing based on search results I found here.
IP Address: 192.168.1.122
DNS: 192.168.1.188 (this is the IP of the Pihole and is what's set for the DNS in my DHCP server - it's also the same address in all devices on the network because the DHCP server forces it to all devices).
I'm sorry - I conflated two different things. I was looking at "Private Address" under WiFi setting on the iPhone and my brain connected it as Private Relay because I was reading through a few searched results here that mentioned private relay.