Analysis of Network-Wide Ad Blocker Using Mikrotik RouterBoard and Raspberry Pi for Enhancing Network QoS

The rapid increase in online advertisements has significantly impacted network performance, resulting in lower throughput utilization, higher latency, and a diminished user experience. This study presents the development and evaluation of a proactive, network-wide ad-blocking system leveraging DNS filtering, implemented using a Raspberry Pi 4 and MikroTik RouterBOARD. By intercepting and blocking adserving domain requests at the network level, the proposed solution effectively reduces unnecessary traffic, alleviates network congestion, and enhances overall Quality of Service (QoS). Experimental analysis demonstrates clear improvements in key performance indicators, including reductions in latency and jitter, alongside gains in throughput. The system proves to be a cost-effective and scalable approach suitable for small home network to medium-sized networks. Notably, the deployment achieved a significant latency reduction from 150 ms to 70 ms and a modest throughput increase from 9.8 Mbps to 9.9 Mbps, validating its effectiveness in optimizing network performance through DNS-level ad filtering.