Many PfBlocker lists no longer updated or supported

dgall

Just a heads up I was updating my feed lists in pfblocker and clicking on the feed links many of the links when I click on them and download the the list and open them many have messages they are no longer updated or supported I was looking to add some new ones off the feed list and a high percentage are no longer updated.

Gertjan

@dgall

That's actually a normal situation.
Many are trying to fight the spam mails, blacklist pure BS web sites, or just want to limit somewhat what connected user can 'visit' or access.
So, a view of them, the ones who are actually looking at the DNS and web server logs (just to name two) and check every IP and host name they found, visit the site, classify them, and create 'lists'. And because they want their work to be useful for other, the rent some disk space and a domain name, and publish their list. From then on, motivated, as people start to download the list, they will maintain de list,use the feedback to make the list more useful (remove false positives, etc).

Then, disaster strikes.

Their list get mentioned on lists integrated with PI-Hole, pfBlockerng and others.

One month later, our list creator receives a mail and a huge bill from the company where the rent the web server and disk space. The host company explains that "normal server bandwidth usage" is included in the monthly rent. Not the xx Terabytes download traffic.
After all : imagine 1 million pfSense users. Half of them uses pfBlockerng. Let every IP and DNSBL be 1 Mbytes in size. For some reason, admins try to re download the list every hour (even when it is stated that the list is updated ones a month max ...).
Now, grab your Casio calculator, and estimate the traffic generated.
Add another 500K (more ?) Pi-Hole users in the mix.
By now, you understand the problem : hosting a IP and/or DNSBL list can become very fast very expensive. Free unlimited bandwidth exist, if you're a student and have access to 'state funded' material. For the rest of us : its becomes a $ or € burden.
And this does not motivate people to create and maintain a IP or DNSBL list.

The pfBlockerng Feed list shows you that IP or DNSBL do exist (or, as you've found out for some of them : have existed).
Take my story as a "Why they might vanish after some time". Other explanations surely also exist.
Up to you to find other, not listed ones. And if you find one, tell no one about it. Otherwise you kill it ^^

dgall

@Gertjan Thanks for the explaination I went thru all my feeds and put some new ones in deleted a few old ones went to a few websites that listed the latest threats and it blocked them all

KOM

I used to run pfB but I removed it in favour of PiHole.

tinfoilmatt

@KOM No dynamic-alias nor feed-based IP filtering for you?