I have a pihole server on my network. It used to block the ads on my roku's homescreen and only empty placeholders would show up.

I bought a new Roku player and it doesn't seem to have any of the ads on the homescreen blocked by the pihole. Configuring the "secret menus" doesn't really do anything, as far as I can tell.

Does anyone have any updated methods for blocking ads on the Roku homescreen?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

I can tell it’s hitting my Pi for the DNS lookup.

This is a good sign!

I don't have a Roku so can't help at that level, but this site mentions some domains to block and also a secret menu that lets you remove ads: https://appuals.com/block-ads-roku-tv/

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Alright, I went nuclear and blocked almost all DNS lookups by my roku. Almost any requests for a roku domain are now blocked. If something gets broken I'll undo it, but so far, so good.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Nice! You should also be able to use the pihole logs to check which domains it's hitting if you need to loosen it later.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I've never had success with the secret menu configuration. Most of it is cryptic to me. I appreciate the support and I'm definitely going to keep trying. (I think I found some domains to block that seem promising but I'm not celebrating yet.)

  • source
  • parent