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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I’m not sure, it depends on your configuration and blocking list. I don’t use native tracking protection, and my blocklist (oisd) prioritizes functionality over blocking, so in my case everything just works and I don’t have anything special added to my whitelist. I don’t like DNS blocking to be in the way and I also share my configuration with some family members, so that’s why I’ve made this choice, but if you prefer a stricter approach you might have to do some whitelisting.


  • If the iCloud Private Relay ODoH DNS server is used it will show up as a DNS leak, even if the IP address from its response isn’t used for browsing. For privacy it doesn’t matter, as with ODoH the DNS resolver doesn’t know your IP or identity, the most important thing is whether it will bypass the NextDNS blocklist. In my testing I couldn’t visit any website that was blocked by NextDNS, meaning that the iCloud DNS resolver wasn’t used as the primary DNS resolver, which matches with their documentation (that page 10 that I linked to earlier). Note that Apple will only use a custom DNS resolver if you’re using the native DoH option, so for example the configuration that you can get from https://apple.nextdns.io/.

    You can easily test it yourself: block a hostname in NextDNS that you haven’t visited recently (due to cache) and try to visit it in Safari.

    I don’t know why Apple still uses the Cloudflare DNS resolver even if it seems to be ignoring its responses. Maybe they use it for some custom metadata that’s sent along with the request which somehow is important for the relay. All I know is that I’ve never seen it bypassing the NextDNS blocklist, which again is exactly how it’s documented by Apple.


  • So for some reason Apple keeps using their DNS resolver even with a custom DoH resolver configured, but in my testing it didn’t affect the blocking capabilities of NextDNS at all, meaning that the answers from their resolver are just ignored (or used for some other purpose). The way NextDNS knows that you’re using another resolver is by letting the browser resolve some unique hostnames, so that way it will show up even if the answers from that resolver aren’t used. As to why Apple does this I don’t know. In theory it could be the case that Apple just used whichever answer arrives first and that NextDNS just happened to be faster in my testing, but that doesn’t match with how it’s documented in their PDF.

    Which one to pick (if you don’t just want to use them at the same time) depends on what your goal is. I use iCloud Private Relay + NextDNS + AdGuard, but nowadays I mainly use another browser with a built-in adblocker, so iCloud Private Relay and AdGuard aren’t used in that case.

    I use NextDNS everywhere I can and use a list that prioritizes not breaking anything. It’s a nice backstop. It’s not a replacement for an in-browser adblocker in my opinion, unless you don’t care that it’s less effective.


  • Contrary to common believe, iCloud Private Relay and NextDNS are compatible and can both be enabled at the same time, see page 10 of https://www.apple.com/icloud/docs/iCloud_Private_Relay_Overview_Dec2021.pdf. When you try to visit a blocked hostname in Safari, you’ll see that it won’t work. This is something that I’ve personally confirmed.

    What NextDNS solves and iCloud Private Relay doesn’t, is blocking hostnames system wide, thereby completely blocking some ads and tracking. What iCloud Private Relay solves is hiding your browsing traffic a bit better within your local network and from your ISP, as well as hiding your IP from trackers and hiding your identity from their DNS resolver (not from NextDNS, though).

    Some background information why using HTTPS together with encrypted DNS doesn’t fully hide which websites you visit (yet): https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-encrypted-client-hello.

    If I had to choose, I’d go with NextDNS for system wide blocking and I’d add an adblocker browser extension to block trackers and ads that can’t be blocked with DNS based blocking. But you don’t have to choose and can use both at the same time.




  • For general usage, it doesn’t really matter. Distrobox is inspired on toolbox and provides some added functionality and configurability, like init scripts and the ability to run different distros, as well as creating desktop shortcuts on your host system. If you don’t need all of that, I’d stick with toolbox, as it’s preinstalled and works well.



  • If there’s anyone that hates what Red Hat has done here, it’s me, but what AlmaLinux is doing is exactly what Red Hat was aiming for according to their statement, which is that clones would use CentOS Stream as their upstream and develop and contribute their own patches instead of copying RHEL bug-for-bug. The other reason is of course to convert people that need that bug-for-bug clone to paying customers.

    With SUSE having announced a RHEL compatible alternative, I’m hoping that some people/businesses will consider switching their environment over to them as a more OSS friendly competitor that also offers support. If that distribution gains some traction, I foresee that some of the clones might use that as their upstream and that OEMs will follow suit and test their drivers on those distributions. There are enough people/businesses that are reliant on a mixture of RHEL and Alma/Rocky and for those life got a bit harder because of RHEL’s actions.



  • The base os is immutable, but you can still change configuration files, compile and install local software (but not in the immutable directories), install desktop environment extensions, add custom repositories, etc. You can also layer packages, but most graphical software is best installed as flatpaks (but not mandatory). So it depends on what tinkering means for you. If it means messing around with binaries in the default locations, like /usr/bin, then it’s not for you, but for many other things there is a way, it’s just a matter of getting used to the separation between the immutable base layer and the things that you build around and on top of it.