238

Temporarily disable filtering

Before I migrated from Pi-hole, there was an option to disable blocking for 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 5 minutes, etc. I was able to use that for troubleshooting.

E.g. to identify if Pi-hole was causing a problem, uBO, or the website was having a problem. Pain having to change DNS to verify if a blocklist is causing it.

When something isn't working on my wife's computer, I have to go through log and start adding some things that could be a problem, wait for TTL, and see if that fixes it. World be great if we could have a disable button per profile so that it just acts as a resolver without any blocking (basically, same as if a free user goes over 300,000 queries in over month).

52 replies

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    • Skyking_Nolastname
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Made an account to suggest this feature as well, but already saw this thread. I would very much appreciate this option as well. I think the PiHole implementation -- where you can disable filtering and just do raw DNS resolution -- for 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, or until manually switched back on -- would be ideal.

    • snoopotic
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Yeah. I need that, too.

    As I use nextDNS on my router (asus wrt merlin) I am not able to simply disable filtering without completely uninstalling and then reinstalling it...

    But I have Problems with the:

    - speedtestn.net app - it crashes on ios in nextdns-filtered networks and blocklist does not show, which request was blocked befor crash :/

    - I was not able to restore my iPhone from apple server cloud backup on wifi... had to use mobile traffic (luckily my ISP sponsored 100GB this month) - but that proves also some thing is filtered with nxtdns

     

    SO I'd like to have this option to temporarily disable all filtering, too.

     

    happy holidays

    • skarz
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This would be a great feature!

    • Ruby_Balloon
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Definitely needed; haphazardly adding whitelists or removing/re-adding blocklists for trial & error is not the way

    • Phil_S
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    +1

    • Dim0x
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I like this suggestion also.

    One way to accomplish this however is too add a profile that has no filtering and then you can switch between them on your device.  Though, it would be easier to just simply add a switch to disable all filters while leaving your filter selections in place on the same profile.

    • Dustin_Aubrey
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This feature would be a tremendous help.  I often run into situations where I need to access a site one time.  I'd like to just hit an 'Allow for 1 day' type of options and see it in the list.  Then I would remove it before that time if I needed, or if I wait the system will remove it after the 1 day I specified when creating the entry on the allowlist.

      • Low_Tide
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Dustin Aubrey I want to block sites like reddit during work hours, but sometimes reddit has the answer to a work-related question. It'd be great if I could limit sites like reddit to three visits per hour, so I could view that answer but not get sucked into reading all the posts.

    • Henry
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Good afternoon Romain Cointepas  &  Olivier Poitrey ,

    Thanks for everything you do. Hoping to get some traction on some of these postings. I used to post on Reddit and never got a response, but then started here once this site went live. Any info on these requests?

    Thanks so much!

      • Henry
      • 2 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Hi @Romain Cointepas  &  @Olivier Poitrey. It has been a year and we haven't even gotten any acknowledgement to this. This has received a lot of attention. Can you please address it? Thanks

      • Henry
      • 9 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      Good afternoon @Romain & @Olivier,

      Any word on this requested feature from numerous users? Thanks

    • Max
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Would also love that feature. 

    • Jlchandler
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This would be super helpful!

    • crssi
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I don't think that would be a good idea anyone could override the nextdns deny at ease, except this would be an "allow" option/directive from the configuration setup.

    You do not need to wait for TTL, just do ipconfig /flushdns which will clear the DNS cache.

    • Hector_Balka
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    +1 Same use case as OP.

    • Poom
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I want it too because sometime need to remove all filters and re-add it again

    • Jeff
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    +1 
    A selected filter was blocking a particular banking app on my phone from connecting. 

    I can certainly disable filters one by one and leave out the offending party, but that'll take considerable time.  I still had to get to my PC before I could remove all filters and use my app.  That's a significant drawback to using this service. 

    A quick toggle would go a long way to at least make working around these issues faster and easier.

      • losnad
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      You can certainly look in logs and click on details to see which list(s) blocked what you need and then you either add to Allowlist or disable the list(s).

      You can certainly do everything from the phone.

      You don't need all the lists enabled, most are redundant.
      A few good ones is all you need. I use 6/7 depending on device. Some use less.

      This is very relevant:

      "Allowing a domain will automatically allow all its subdomains. Allowing takes precedence over everything else, including security features."

      So, I added here what I temporarily need.
      After I finish, I toggle off.

      Also if something I need is blocked by some list.

      An alternative solution is to create a new configuration (not account) without blocking lists (or minimal protection) and change the DNS to this one when needed.

      I get it that are some cases when this function will be useful but some comments make little sense.

      • losnad
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      So instead of fixing the problem your idea is to leave yourself exposed.

      You would get the same result by turning off the app or private / native DNS.

      • crssi
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Maybe when you are alone that is using the particular setup, but most users (I belive) have more than one device behind the setup and disabling NextDNS in a suggested way would also expose all of those devices.

      Also bear in mind that when doing so, you also need to flush DNS cache on your device to make it work.

      I can see that best and the only way is that you use NextDNS client on a device or YogaDNS and disable NextDNS over those.

    • JeanPaul_Gillesse
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Essential feature, I am using IOS profile and it is too cumbersome to figure out which domain to whitelist when an app fails  .. if there is an alternative for NextDns that offers a toggle switch … then I will cancel my subscription for NextDns immediately 

    • ilberto_adami
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    A much needed feature indeed. Maybe even with a preset timer so it comes back to your predefined settings after X minutes. Would be very nice. ;)

    • Tyler_Miranda
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    While I do agree this would be nice to have...another option would be to just create a different configuration that has no blocking enabled and switch your device to use this configuration temporarily. 

    • Proton
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I strongly considered subscribing to NextDNS, as I think it has a lot of potential.  However, once I discovered it can't be temporarily turned off, I had to revert back to Pihole.  Specifically, I want to point my router DNS settings to it so all devices on my network automatically use it.  Without a method to quickly toggle active/disabled (like on Pihole with a mobile widget or browser extension), it's just not feasible for me.  I was hoping the new API would have an option, but there doesn't appear to be one.

    • Rob_Nicholson
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Another hand up for this feature - currently trying to diagnose a problem on an exam PC which could be due to blocking. I'm having to do it at the weekend before the only way to disable NextDNS entirely is to remove it from the Fritzbox router and exit NextDNS client. This should be a client option so that even if NextDNS is running on the router, it would still effectively remove all unblocking for whatever

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