Hi there
I'm a bit in doubt: should I block trafficmanager.net in Pi-Hole?
TL;DR;
It seems to be used a lot, but blocking it seems to have different results. Overall I do not see issues. But after upgrading to iOS 14, my devices (2 iPad Air, 2 iPhones (Xr and 11)) seem to have intermittent problems with accessing bing.com in both Edge for iOS and Safari. I get errors about the current site I'm on that it is not available (multiple different sites, e.g. berlingske.dk). But that is not the problem... When trying to access bing.com it fails - when trying to search from the addressbar (in Edge) it fails (type ahead does not fail) - Error is still that the current site is unavailable. When looking at the Query Log, it seems like the block of trafficmanager.net is the culprit, it doesn't even get to the part of requesting bing.com. Trafficmanager.net is blocked the times the times it does not work.
Other times it works and trafficmanager.net is blocked.
Removing trafficmanager.net (RegEx) from the blocklist solves the problem completely... Hence my question: should I block trafficmanager.net? If so I need to find a way to get these intermittent errors to go away...
What blocklist are you using that contains this domain? It isn't on the defaults and I don't see it on any of the Wally3K ticked lists, for example. Please post the output of the following from the Pi terminal:
root@3c048dc598cd:/# pihole -q www.bing.com
Match found in exact whitelist
www.bing.com
Actually I see that if I do the same without "www." I get results from various blocklists (and yes, it's blocklist with an o )
root@3c048dc598cd:/# pihole -q bing.com
Match found in exact whitelist
www.bing.com
Match found in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts:
bat.bing.com
c.bing.com
ads.ukclimbing.com
ads.bing.com
adserver.bing.com
Match found in https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains:
myebing.com
id-denied-access-subscribing.com
cogsgasandplumbing.com.au
hartwigplumbing.com
activebing.com
willowplumbing.com.au
Match found in https://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts:
bat.bing.com
c.bing.com
Match found in https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt:
ads.bing.com
adserver.bing.com
Match found in https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt:
bat.bing.com
c.bing.com
dps.bing.com
Match found in https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easyprivacy.txt:
bat.bing.com
Match found in https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Prigent-Ads.txt:
ads.bing.com
adserver.bing.com
bat.bing.com
That's right. I thought it was some kind of tracking domain, but I'm not sure. Hence the question: should I block it at all? Is it a legit domain that does not track?
I would say do not block it. It doesn't appear on any of the reputable blocklists, so the blocklist maintainers don't think it's a domain of concern. Note that some blocklists block sub-domains of this domain, but not this specific domain.
) - I mean blacklist; the one you maintain yourself.
)