Speaking of ads

I'm finally getting a pi4 for Xmas. I know because I got the mail, and the *cringe* padded bubble mailer said Canakit on the return address, and after the last 3 Christmases of getting all the other parts this is the only thing it could be.

Since I don't need it for the 3d printer, currently, it's going straight to whole house ad blocking.

Seems simple enough, hook pi to tv, keyboard, and network. Command line to pi hole, leave sit plugged in somewhere. Or is it connect to hardware, flash os, bunch of annoying stuff, then leave plugged in somewhere?

I see a lot of guides going through an os install and a bunch of other things, then look closer and they're using old hardware, like pi2s. I see other guides just punch in a command line command and the pi does everything by itself. Looking specifically for the 4, I'm pulling up a lot of sales blogs trying to sell me one.

As this is my first foray into pi land, I'm not sure what I need to do or which guides I should be following.

What I know is I have a pi4 kit, a usb keyboard, open hdmi slots, a brand new (if I can find it) micro SD card, and some Ethernet patch cables and this stuff should all combine to get rid of the stupid YouTube ads on my smart tvs and game systems, and all other ads on all the wireless devices in the house, possibly to the detriment of mobile gaming.

So how do I put this stuff together to not be advertised at anymore? 

This just sounds like a massive headache, but could I white list specific requests, like mobile games when you need to watch an ad to get something or speed something up, and NOT white list the device entirely?

I can use the pi for other things WHILE it's being an ad blocker, right?

Have I made this thread before?

All of the RPi's are essentially the same when it comes to OS.  The newer ones have more features and therefore more drivers are needed, but generally there isn't a lot of difference in configuring a Pi3 and a Pi4 in this situation.

Anyway, I'd start here:

https://docs.pi-hole.net/

Basically you'll probably want to install Rasbian aka Raspberry Pi OS (https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/)

Configure it for a static IP address on your network.  Perferably connected via network cable to the modem/router.

Then once the prereqs are satisfied, download and install the Pi-Hole software:

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

Then set your Modem/Router to use the Pi-Hole as the primary DNS server for your network.

It can run headless and you can monitor it via connecting to the internal website.

I'm not sure about using them as anything other than a Pi-Hole, but a Pi4 is powerful enough that it should be able to handle running a GUI as well.  Worst case, plan on finding a Pi3 to use strictly for Pi-Hole and use the Pi4 for something fun.

BTW, an Octoprint server for your 3D printer can be pretty handy.  Avoids having to transfer files via SD card and you can add cameras to monitor it remotely, etc.  Just a thought.

All that said, one step at a time.