# Control D 16 Hacker News commenters recommended Control D and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People recommend Control D for DNS-level ad and tracker blocking, custom blocklists and a free tier. Caveat: some find it slow. ## Why people recommend it - Blocks ads and trackers at DNS level (4 comments): "Brave + NextDNS/ControlD is what I've found the be the ultimate ad blocking combo" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46187735)) "There is a simple and free method to block anything you like at DNS level" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48768086)) "I use ControlD and it's blocking 38% of all DNS requests in my household." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45867474)) - Editable blocklists and free tier (2 comments): "they maintain ad block lists that you can edit as you see fit to add things or relax things that may cause issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46426147)) "I ended up just switching to Control D's free tier using the Hagezi blocklist." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985262)) - More features than alternatives (2 comments): "controld overall has more features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46423485)) "ControlD has them beat there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49998582)) ## What people warn about - Feels slow and heavy (1 comments): "ControlD’s is slow and feels so heavy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46429707)) - Routing all DNS traffic through it (1 comments): "not sure I wanna keep tunneling all my DNS queries to ControlD perpetually" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321375)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [NextDNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nextdns.md): 81 recommend - [AdGuard DNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/adguard-dns.md): 26 recommend - [RethinkDNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rethinkdns.md): 16 recommend - [Pi-hole](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pihole.md): 5 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://controld.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Control D", https://hackerapproved.com/p/controld/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).