About Esper

Heavily inspired by the Pi-Hole, this open-source project aims to bring network wide ad blocking and tracking prevention to another popular device popular among makers and hobbyists, the ESP32.

How Does It Work?

Esper blocks ads and trackers by filtering the DNS requests that devices on your network are sending. When it detects that a device is trying to connect to a bad domain, such as googleadservices.com, it will send a fake response to the device that prevents it from loading ads or trackers.

What's Included?

• 3D printed enclosure
• Custom ESP32 board, with ethernet

How do I use it?

Settings up an Esper is very simple! Simply add it as your DNS server in your router/access-point and you will be done! From now on devices in your network will have to go through the Esper before they can connect to the internet.

How is this different than Pi-hole?

On the surface these two project are very similar, both act as DNS filters for your network. The biggest difference is that Pi-hole is a project intended to run on a Linux machine, meaning you have to have one already set up before our can use it. For some, this is no problem, but not for everyone.

Esper is designed to be quick and easy to setup and to run silently in the background with as few interruptions as possible. There is no command line, SD card, or fiddling with config files needed to get it running.

If you already have a Raspberry Pi running, Pi-hole might be the better choice for you. But if you don't already have one, or if you regularly use yours for other projects that might interfere with it's network connection, an Esper is a great alternative.

More Resources

If you would like to learn more you can head over to the Esper repository.