Less than 24h ago, Pi-hole released an update to the Pi-hole core. The update is version 4.3.2 and it removes support for the adblock style lists.

What does this mean for me?

If you are using adblock style (format) lists – the lists you’d use in browser extensions like AdBlock Plus and uBlock Origin – you’ll need to find alternatives as this format is not supported any more.

How do I know which are adblock style lists?

If you didn’t add custom lists, you likely don’t have adblock style lists and you are not affected. However, if you did, after the update to Pi-hole core 4.3.2, whenever you update Gravity (the lists), you’ll get notified if a list is not supported any more.

An update of Gravity happens automatically during the update of Pi-hole but if you want to run it again, simply execute pihole -g in a terminal.

What does the notification look like?

In the terminal (or terminal log in the web interface) you will see something like this:

  [i] Target: easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org (easylistgermany.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful
  [✗] Format: Adblock (list type not supported)

Simply delete those lists and look for alternatives.

Where can I get alternatives?

Simply check the web for “hosts file” compatible lists and the like. Or simply plain domain lists. One site I can recommend is hosts-file.net.

Can I somehow export and import my updated lists to other pi-holes to save time?

Yes! After updating your list of lists (ha!) you can copy the list from /etc/pihole/adlists.list and copy them to other piholes. After copying them to the other Pi-hole, run pihole -g to apply the changes.

I am ready, how do I update?

Simply execute pihole -up in a terminal.

I hope this post helped you out. Have a great day updating all those piholes! ;)