Notes 📒

August 8, 2023 · View on GitHub

The below information relates to what I personally use and recommend people consider using.

Please assess what is best for you.

Usage for AdGuard Home 🛡

Check that you are using AdGuard Home v0.107.36 or later before continuing.

DNS Settings within AdGuard 🥅

I personally use and recommend people consider using Quad9 (https://www.quad9.net/) as their DNS.

Quad9 tops the speed and reliability tests for my location; they offer Malware Blocking, support DNS-over-TLS and also DNSSEC.

They are also now "incorporated in Switzerland to guarantee privacy for global DNS users" (quad9).

Cloudflare's offering is also great, I currently use them in 2023.

(optional) To test it at your location run the tool: GRC Domain Name Speed Benchmark for Windows/Linux

Upstream DNS servers 🔼

I use:

https://security.cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query
tls://security.cloudflare-dns.com

for malware protection I use 1.1.1.1 for Families (Malware Blocking Only).

Bootstrap DNS servers 🥾

AdGuard Home will auto-populate these.

DNS server configuration ⚙

Check/tick the "Enable DNSSEC" checkbox and click the green Save button.

Lists 📓

Once you have AdGuard Home ready and are logged in, you can use its main menu to add lists.

As of version 1.2 there's two options:

Standard - All modules in one whitelist (whitelist.txt)
Modular - Slim whitelist (whitelist_slim.txt) and then specific modules from below

Standard

(For the average user it's much easier yet not customized)

Add one blocklist and one allowlist (below).

Type	Link (URL)
🛑 Blocklist	blocklist
📗 Allowlist	whitelist

Modular

(For advanced users it involves a much longer initial configuration)

Add the slim one blocklists and one allowlist (below).

Type	Link (URL)
🛑 Blocklist	blocklist
📗 Allowlist	whitelist

Then add the modules you desire to use.

Filters Update Interval ⏱

You can modify how often filter lists are updated within AdGuard Home in the Settings > General Settings page.

Set "Filters update interval" to 12 hours (recommended) and click the green "Save" button.

Disallowed Domains

(Optional but recommended to avoid query log spam)

copy and paste disallowed domains into AdGuard's "Disallowed domains" section at the bottom of "DNS settings"
Click the "Save" button to keep a much clearer query log

Blocked Services 🚨

It's useful to set blocked services within AdGuard Home.

Go to "filters" then "blocked services"
Click the "Block all" button and then toggle off the services you actually use or will use
Click the green "Save" button at the bottom of the page

Browsers 🌏

A mix of Internet Browser Addons/Extensions can improve your security and privacy further.

These are best security and privacy focused internet browser extensions/addons in my opinion.

Mozilla Firefox Users 🦊

Install using this collection.

Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Google Chrome Users 🌐

Visit the official Google Chrome Webstore:

Manually add:

Windows 10 Antispy Tool 🕵️‍♀️

If you use Windows 10, please use O&O ShutUp10 to disable spying features initially and then after each major update.