I use a /etc/hosts-based (https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) approach to add blocking across my machines, but I have found some sites (fansided.com) comes to mind, which detect that I'm blocking and won't let me read them. How easy is it to get around this with the pi-hole?
Very easy. You can pause it for 10s, 30s, 5mins, or a custom timeframe via the dashboard, or whitelist domains/subdomains as well. You basically do everything via a very slick dashboard running locally on its IP.
