Or get a decent /etc/hosts file .

I haven't tried setting up PiHole yet. Does it "break" any of the interwebz for me in the way client-side ad blockers sometimes can? Any pitfalls I need to be aware of?

I use pi-hole and am grateful for it, but it breaks lots of online commerce sites (e.g. Amazon) in ways that irritate my wife, who then comes to me to file her grievances and tech support request.

This is AFAICT because it blocks "sponsored product placement" type ads — which are indeed ads, but which some users are deriving value from (at least so they think), and want to see.

(Luckily the admin dashboard makes it fairly easy to deal with these, but usually I "don't have time" right then and just disable it for x minutes.)

Ublock origin is the best here, since it blocks trackers and ads while still allowing you to temporarily click to bypass the screen that stops you from visiting a tracker (eg. a marketing shortlink or ad that you actually are interested in).

I agree that ublock origin is convenient, but doesn't do anything to block ads in apps, on (unrooted) TVs, etc.

No, it is fully customizable and managed by a dashboard.

You're saying that even if I do run into any issues, I'll be able to tweak and resolve myself?

Exactly. I have pi-hole and maybe one every month I have to go to the web interface and click the link to disable blocking for five minutes while I use some kind of shady software.

If it's something I use often I might spend the time to look through the logs and work out the correct ___domain to unblock. But there are also handy "disable for 10s/30s/5m" functions which just let me get on with my day.

Yes. Some pages won't load if they're on whatever blocklist you're using. You can manually remove them from your blocklist.

A fair few routers also allow a rule similar to “if traffic is on port 53 traffic and not from PiHole, send to PiHole.”

I have a lg webos smarttv and haven’t noticed any ads. I also have a pihole.