My New Weekend Project: Building a Personal Ad-Blocking Server in the Cloud!

Hey everyone, Prajwol here.

Like a lot of you, I spend a good chunk of my day online. And lately, it’s felt like I’m in a constant battle with pop-ups, trackers, and auto-playing video ads. I’ve used browser extensions for years, but I wanted a more powerful solution—something that would protect my entire home network, including my phone and smart TV, without needing to install software everywhere.

So, I decided to take on a new project: building my very own ad-blocking DNS server in the cloud.

I’d done something similar a while back with Linode, but this time I wanted to dive into the world of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and see if I could build a reliable, secure, and cost-effective setup from scratch. It turned into quite the adventure, involving a late-night session of launching a virtual server, wrestling with firewalls, and securing my own private domain with an SSL certificate.

The end result? It’s been fantastic. My web pages load noticeably faster, and the general online experience feels so much cleaner and less intrusive. Plus, knowing that I have full control over my own corner of the internet is incredibly satisfying. It’s a great feeling to see the query logs fill up with blocked requests for domains I’ve never even heard of!

I documented every single step of my journey, from the first click in the AWS console to the final configuration on my home router. If you’re curious about how to build one for yourself, I’ve written up a complete, step-by-step guide.

You can check out the full project guide here!

It was a challenging but really rewarding project. Let me know what you think!

Published: Friday, August 22, 2025