I'm running an IPv4-only pihole (on Raspberry Pi 3B+) setup with Windows 10, Mac OS, and iOS. The Pihole is not the default DNS for the network, so each host is manually configured.
Firstly, the Windows 10 mostly works with no issues.
But on MacOS and iOS, any time I visit a new website it takes several seconds, sometimes even minutes, to load. Then it'll randomly be okay for a few minutes, and I can browse with no issues. But some random amount of time later, it'll be be back to taking 10 seconds to 5 minutes to load new websites (sometimes even the old ones).
If the period of time for it to load is in the minutes, then it will somehow prevent my other devices from loading webpages.
Okay I solved this problem by deleting the regex rules, and most of the adlists. Now I can have roughly 2/3 of firebog.net's ticked adlists on without causing issues.
Every time I enable the remaining 1/3 of the adlists, the same problems come back. I go from loading a new website in 1-2 seconds, to being lucky to have it load within 2 minutes.
Some internet research tells me that I should be expecting MUCH better performance. What could be the matter here?
Edit: Newest update broke it again. Now takes about a minute to load any page on iOS, while Windows remains unaffected.
I've found a workaround. For whatever reason, iOS just won't play nicely with Pihole if its traffic is filtered through too many adlists.
A workaround is to make the default group only use a small number (10-15) adlists. The top 3 of each category on firebog.net is my recommendation. I then add my Windows 10 computer (which doesn't seem to have a problem with many adlists), to a group with more thorough ad blocking.
This is a bit of a workaround, and not a real solution. It is unexpected behaviour, and ideally I would not have to limit adlists on certain devices.