> comparison · ad-blocker tests

PIHOLEKILLER vs d3ward's Adblock Tester

d3ward's adblock-tester has been the community benchmark for checking an ad blocker since 2020 — fast, open-source, widely cited on r/pihole and Reddit privacy threads. PIHOLEKILLER is the newer, harder test: 103 probes across 6 categories and 3 difficulty tiers, specifically built to catch what d3ward doesn't measure. Both are free. Both are legitimate. The difference is what they test and how hard.

PUBLISHED 2026-04-22 · NEITHER IS "BETTER" · RUN BOTH FOR A COMPLETE PICTURE

Summary table

dimension	PIHOLEKILLER	d3ward
total probes	103 across 6 categories	~70 across 3-4 categories
difficulty tiering	yes — 3 tiers (standard / advanced / extreme)	no tiering — all probes same difficulty
DoH bypass tests	yes (Level 2 + 3)	no
fingerprinter tests	yes — canvas, audio, font enum, third-party fp SDKs	limited
popunder tests	yes	limited
malware-adjacent probes	yes — phishing-kit, crypto-miner endpoints	no
open source	no (all tests run client-side; no data logged)	yes (GitHub Pages)
scoring model	pass rate per pillar × difficulty, weighted composite grade	pass count, flat out of total
community leaderboard	yes — public submissions at /leaderboard	no
best for	measuring what advanced defenses still miss; stress-testing the full stack	quick baseline check; sanity-testing a new ad blocker

> short answer d3ward tells you if your ad blocker works at all. PIHOLEKILLER tells you what it misses when you thought it was working. Passing d3ward at 100% is table stakes; most high-intent privacy setups score 60-85% on PIHOLEKILLER's harder tiers. Run both.

Why the scores differ

d3ward focuses on standard advertising and analytics endpoints — DoubleClick, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, typical Adsterra-tier ad networks. These are the endpoints every reasonable blocker should catch, and d3ward is the canonical pass-fail test for "does my ad blocker even work." Most Pi-Hole + uBlock stacks clear d3ward at 95-100%.

PIHOLEKILLER extends the attack surface. Level 1 overlaps substantially with d3ward and most blockers clear it. Level 2 adds DoH bypass probes — DNS-over-HTTPS queries through Cloudflare, Google, NextDNS, and Quad9 that Pi-Hole does not see. Level 3 adds extreme probes: session-replay SDKs, fingerprinter CDNs, anti-adblock detection scripts, popunder networks, and phishing-kit-adjacent domains. Stacks that passed d3ward catastrophically fail Level 3 if they're DNS-only; that's by design.

When to use d3ward

Quick baseline check. 30 seconds and you know whether your blocker is functional. If d3ward shows red across the board, something is broken before advanced tests make sense.
Comparing blockers apples-to-apples. d3ward's flat scoring makes it easy to run with Blocker A then Blocker B on the same device and compare raw pass counts.
Sanity-check a new install. Just set up Pi-Hole? Run d3ward first. If it passes 90%+, your DNS-layer setup is working; now proceed to PIHOLEKILLER for the depth check.
Source-code review. d3ward is on GitHub — when you want to audit exactly what a test fires, the source is public.

When to use PIHOLEKILLER

Measuring a layered stack. Pi-Hole + uBlock + DoH blocking + HTTPS filtering: every layer closes a different gap. PIHOLEKILLER's difficulty tiers show which layer is doing what.
Stress-testing defenses before recommending them. Writing a guide? Evaluating a product? PIHOLEKILLER's harder tiers reveal weaknesses that d3ward's standard endpoints don't.
Community benchmarking. PIHOLEKILLER's /leaderboard lets anyone submit their stack + score, producing a public record of what real-world configs actually achieve.
Catching DoH bypass. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Android all ship with DoH enabled in various regions. If your Pi-Hole is "blocking ads" but a browser has a DoH fallback active, you have a false sense of security. PIHOLEKILLER Level 2+ catches this.

The honest workflow

Start with d3ward. Fix any reds before proceeding. Once you pass d3ward at 90%+, run PIHOLEKILLER. Expect a drop — Level 3 alone will find gaps your DNS-layer stack cannot close without layering in a browser extension and router-level DoH blocking. The PIHOLEKILLER score is the realistic measurement of your stack against the real adversary landscape, not the cleaned-up "does the filter work" baseline.

FAQ

Which ad blocker test is harder, PIHOLEKILLER or d3ward?

PIHOLEKILLER is harder by design. It fires 103 requests across 6 categories (ads, trackers, fingerprinters, DoH bypass, malware, popunders) with 3 difficulty tiers per category. d3ward covers roughly 70 ad and tracker endpoints without difficulty tiering. Stacks that score 100% on d3ward commonly score 60-80% on PIHOLEKILLER because the advanced and extreme tiers (DoH bypass, fingerprinters, popunders) defeat most default Pi-Hole setups.

Does d3ward test DoH bypass?

Not directly. d3ward focuses on standard ad and tracker endpoints that any ad blocker should catch. PIHOLEKILLER's Level 2 and Level 3 specifically test DoH bypass scenarios by attempting DNS queries over HTTPS through common providers (Cloudflare, Google, NextDNS) to see which ones your network actually prevents. This is the test DNS-layer blockers most often fail.

Is d3ward's adblock tester open source?

Yes. d3ward's adblock-tester is hosted on GitHub Pages and the source is fully public. PIHOLEKILLER is free and runs all tests client-side with no data logged server-side, but the site is not currently open-sourced.

Can I run both tests? Do results agree?

Yes, and running both is the recommended workflow. Run d3ward first for a baseline; if you pass 90%+ run PIHOLEKILLER to find the remaining gaps. If you fail d3ward, fix your basic setup first before attempting the harder test.

Try both

> RUN PIHOLEKILLER > OPEN d3ward →