From Labzilla:
Your Smart TV is probably ignoring your PiHole
If you’re using PiHole on your network to block ads and prevent your various smart devices from sending tracking information to their manufacturers, you might be surprised to find out that some of these devices are using a sneaky tactic to bypass your PiHole entirely.
Smart devices manufacturers often “hard-code” in a public DNS server, like Google’s 8.8.8.8, and their devices ignore whatever DNS server is assigned by your router - such as your PiHole.
Nearly 70% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles were found to contain hardcoded DNS settings - allowing them to simply ignore your local network’s DNS server entirely. On average, Smart TVs generate an average of 60 megabytes of outgoing Internet traffic per day, all the while bypassing tools like PiHole.
Say what? "60 megabytes of outgoing Internet traffic per day"
PiHole uses a cheap linux machine (Raspberry Pi) to intercept the traffic to and from the machines in your house.
It blocks 99% of targeted advertising and speeds things up a lot. Highly recommended and easy to set up and administrate. An alternative on a machine by machine basis is to use a HOSTS file on each computer - MVPS HOSTS is an excellent one and is free to download. Good stuff.
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