Using modified Tor Browser as my everyday web surfing solution, I having trouble with the next dilemma: give up any ad-block extensions and watch all these ads, or install some and become easily traceable, because this type of browser extensions and blocklists in them are easy detectable via JavaScript. (https://browserleaks.com/proxy)
Here I would like to clarify: does Pi-hole provides any advantages in this regard since it works outside the browser and even outside my computer? Сan web services find out that I use Pi-hole the same way as they do with common in-browser solutions?
Can a website specifically determine if you use Pi-hole? No, there's nothing there to identify you. How the fivefilter's site works is checking to see if an image was loaded by the client. (javascript - Check if an image is loaded (no errors) with jQuery - Stack Overflow) If anything is keeping that image from being loaded then it is assumed that you are actively blocking the process and are using some kind of intervention. Is it browser plugin based, DNS based, proxy filter based or any other method is not possible to determine. It's also possible to defeat the detection by preventing the detection script from loading, like the old Reek package did.
Pi-hole is not a security product, we do not provide security support or offer any suggestions or warranties.
So, there's no benefit compared to uBlock in this aspect?
(In fact, in such a case uBlock should be even better, as it supports not only host-type subscriptions and therefore has a larger choice of different anti-adblock lists.)
As I said above, website can implement script to define the exact adlists that are used in your blocker. Since we use different sets of adlists, this makes it easy to identify us by them. For example, if I live in Germany, where I emigrated from Poland, love online shopping in Japan and allow nonintrusive advertising, I need very specific adlists selection that makes me unique.
One thing that should be mentioned is that with PiHole, we all understand that your browser will get less ads since it doesn't find where to download the ads from, but the same is true for all other applications in your computer, plus all devices in your LAN that uses PiHole as the DNS server.
That would include cell phones, tablets, your family's computer(s), your TV(?), your HiFi(?), your connected freezers and light-bulbs, your visitors cellphones and computers (assuming you let your visitors hook up to your LAN and your PiHole).
So potentially a lot of devices, running a lot of different programs, could be relieved from downloading and showing the ads.
Also from calling home and possibly sending information they have collected off your local network.
I check my logs regularly and if I see my IOT devices getting chatty with an unknown site I check it out and possibly block it. As is said so often, the S in IOT stands for security.