Partial support of Legacy Subdomains and Hosts Lists - Migration to a new repository

[hagezi]

Announcement: Partial support of Legacy Subdomains and Hosts Lists - Migration to a new repository

Effective August 1, 2026, blocklists in domains and hosts formats that rely on explicit subdomain enumeration will no longer be fully supported.

These formats require all possible subdomains to be listed individually in order to approximate wildcard-style blocking. This approach is inefficient, incomplete by design, and no longer aligned with modern DNS and content-blocking methods.

Affected Software

The following solutions are known to be affected if they still rely on these formats:

• Pi-hole (only older versions with an FTL version lower than v5.22); starting with FTL v5.22, the AdBlock/ABP format is supported.
• Blocky older than v0.23
• Diversion older than v5
• PersonalBlocklist
• pfBlockerNG
• AdAway
• uMatrix
• OpenSnitch
• DNS66
• NetGuard
• Hostfile (Windows/Linux)
• Other tools using subdomain-based domains or hosts lists

Timeline

• During this week, links to these formats will be removed from the README.
• Until August 1, 2026, the lists will still be updated and made available through the existing URLs currently in use.
• Starting on August 1, 2026, the GitHub RAW/jsDelivr cached links for these formats will no longer work.
• After this date, the host and subdomain formats will only be available in the following repository: https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy
• The lists will be updated at irregular intervals to minimize maintenance effort.

Why This Change Is Necessary

This decision was made for several technical and practical reasons:

• These formats are highly inefficient because every relevant subdomain must be listed explicitly.
• They cannot reliably block generic, dynamic, or previously unknown subdomains, so coverage is inherently limited.
• The resulting lists become very large, which increases download size, memory usage, parsing time, and processing overhead.
• They require significantly more maintenance effort while offering comparatively low technical value.
• Modern DNS blockers increasingly support more capable and efficient formats, making legacy subdomain-enumeration lists obsolete.
• Continuing to maintain these formats adds unnecessary complexity to the release process and takes time away from more useful improvements.
• Large legacy lists can negatively affect performance on resource-constrained systems and embedded devices.
• These formats may create a false sense of completeness, even though they cannot provide full subdomain coverage in practice.

Recommendation

Users of affected software are strongly encouraged to migrate to a supported modern format before August 1, 2026.
If migration is not possible, the formats will remain available in the following repository. The lists are updated daily: https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy

Thank you for your understanding and for your continued support of the project,
Gerd

UPDATE

• Because of GitLab’s repository size limits, it was not possible to push another update. Therefore, the subdomain and host lists were removed from the GitLab mirror on June 27, 2026. They will continue to be available in their updated form on GitHub until August 1, 2026.
• Due to the high volume of messages I’ve received, I have decided to move the host and subdomain lists to a different repository effective August 1, 2026. The lists will be updated at irregular intervals to minimize maintenance effort.
• The subdomain and host lists are available in the new repository: https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy

[hagezi]

The following versions will be available in the https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy repository. The lists will be updated at irregular intervals to minimize maintenance effort.

Subdomains:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/light.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/multi.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/pro.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/pro.plus.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/ultimate.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/tif.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/doh.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.amazon.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.apple.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.huawei.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.winoffice.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.samsung.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.tiktok.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.tiktok.extended.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.lgwebos.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.roku.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.vivo.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.oppo-realme.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/domains/native.xiaomi.txt

Hosts:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/light.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/light-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/multi.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/multi-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/pro.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/pro-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/pro.plus.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/pro.plus-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/ultimate.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/ultimate-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/tif.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/tif-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/doh.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/doh-compressed.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.amazon.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.apple.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.huawei.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.winoffice.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.samsung.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.tiktok.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.tiktok.extended.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.lgwebos.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.roku.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.vivo.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.oppo-realme.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy/main/hosts/native.xiaomi.txt

[ghost]

hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/hosts/doh.txt
hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/hosts/pro.plus.txt
hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/hosts/tif.txt

What's the alternative for above 3? Stevenblack's hosts? https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

[hagezi]

The alternative is to replace rigid host/subdomain lists with a modern blocker that supports wildcard matching.

[ghost]

@hagezi

The resulting lists become very large

• analytics.004gmbh.de: 0 length
• hosts/pro.plus.txt: just 0.0.0.0 analytics.004gmbh.de (+8 length)
• dnsmasq/pro.plus.txt: local=/analytics.004gmbh.de/ (+8 length)
• rpz/pro.plus.txt: analytics.004gmbh.de CNAME . and *.analytics.004gmbh.de CNAME . (+39 length!)

Clearly RPZ is bigger than dnsmasq or hosts so why not remove RPZ?

Also the length of hosts and dnsmasq are identical.

[hagezi]

Why isn’t RPZ being removed? Because you haven’t understood why the ‘hosts’ and ‘subdomain’ formats are no longer being maintained and only wildcard compatible formats - where the root domain on the list blocks all possible subdomains - are being maintained. RPZ is a wildcard format.

[hagezi]

UPDATE: Because of GitLab’s repository size limits, it was not possible to push another update. Therefore, the subdomain and host lists were removed from the GitLab mirror on June 27, 2026. They will continue to be available in their updated form on GitHub until August 1, 2026.

[hagezi]

UPDATE: Due to the high volume of messages I’ve received, I have decided to move the host and subdomain lists to a different repository. The lists will be updated at irregular intervals to minimize maintenance effort.

[hagezi]

UPDATE: The subdomain and host lists are available in the new repository: https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists-legacy