generally is less hands-on for transcoding.

Yeah, I’m not gonna give you that one. It’s a single option that you toggle. Wanna use your nvidia GPU? Enable NVENC. AMD gpu/cpu? AMF. Intel CPU? QSV.

Really not that hard…

Because why run one server for all your needs when you can double up, right? /s

but always struggled with getting it to show which device was making the call

This depends on how you have your devices setup to use your DNS. For e.g, in my home I have my Phone and PC setup to use the IP of my AdGuard server. In AdGuard, I have them as named devices. All other devices on my network use the router as DNS, so all other requests that are not coming from my PC or Phone indicate “router” as the name.

What’s your use case look like?

Home based server running AdGuard forwarded through a caddy reverse_proxy to a domain. Using DoH/3 so even when remote I use my own DNS. Works great.

I try to explain this to the plex cultists and they usually have one of two responses;

1. “Why would I be without internet?”
2. “How is that helpful?”

Takes every ounce of willpower I have to not eye roll.

I would say there’s no value in assigning such a tight definition on self-hosting–in saying that you must use your own hardware and have it on premise.

I would define selfhost as setting up software/hardware to work for you, when turn-key solutions exist because of one reason or another.

Netflix exists. But we selfhost Jellyfin. Doesn’t matter if its not on our hardware or not. What matters is that we’re not using Netflix.

Escaping vendor lock-in. It’s why people hate the cloud when it used to be the answer for everything. You make a good product that can only be used with your hardware/software, whatever, and people run from that shit because it’s abused more often than not.

Apple is the biggest example of this. Synology is getting worse and worse. Plex not far behind either.

If documentation is written in a readable and confluent way, RTFM isn’t such a big deal. The issue comes with overly draconian and non-confluent documentation.

Two things. 1, unless you specifically need to run the software on a Pi, I recommend using AdGuard Home over Pi-Hole. It’s more actively maintained (not to imply that Pi-Hole isn’t actively maintained), and is going to be more of a setup once and forget type of solution.

2, the value in running a software like this is to be able to monitor your network traffic for suspicious activity, block ads, and access to malware, porn, warez, gambling, crypto, etc (especially if you have children). You can use custom blocklists like Hagezi’s threat intelligence feeds (TIF) which instantly decreases your attack vector while interfacing with the clear-net. The TIF blacklists block malware, cryptojacking, scam, spam and phishing. Blocks domains known to spread malware, launch phishing attacks and host command-and-control servers.

I very highly recommend using the Hagezi TIF lists. You can setup AdGuard very easily (mine runs off my Synology NAS), and you can easily force your entire network to use it by changing your DNS server in your router configuration page to your AdGuard Home instance IP (in my case, it’s my Synology NAS IP from within my network).

Takes a few minutes to setup, and you’re done. From there you can use the web-ui to change settings, update blacklists, and even see what your network traffic looks like: https://x0.at/D-aY.png and you can even block access to services directly: https://x0.at/QlbJ.png