Pi-Hole and similar DNS adblockers just seem like a hassle. I can’t tell my parents to buy a raspi, flash it, install and configure pi-hole, configure their routers or devices to point to the raspi, and do all of that from another city. Also personally, there’s no time for that in my house.
Is there a program or systemd service I can run that pulls blocklists from somewhere (git, http, …) and updates /etc/hosts? Before I go off and write a python script, systemd unit file, and shell script to install it on the linux systems of friends of family, does this exist?
Re-invent the wheel - it’s always less hassle! I’m quite sure your script will be far better and more stable than setting up a dns server to do the blocking.
You can’t change their routers name server but it’s easy to install scripts on their devices?
Just put pihole or other dns server with blocklists somewhere on the internet (you can even host that at your own home!!) and point their routers upstream dns to it.