I know I'm only supposed to post once a year on here, but well I guess I'm feeling ambitious. :} Today's topic is DNS servers. I've been using Comcast as my ISP for some time, mainly because there are no other decent choices in the area I live in. It's not horrible, however the main DNS servers are not that reliable and they don't support IPv6. I like having IPv6 support mainly due to the fact it's impossible to know what IPv6 only sites are available if it isn't supported. Whenever I install a new linux version one of the first things i do is go to http://ipv6-test.com/ and see if my ipv6 is working. That is how i first noticed my ISP was not supporting IPv6. I then searched for a public DNS server that would support IPv6. I have been using Google's free DNS servers for a number of years now, set to dns 8.8.8.8 and secondary dns of 8.8.4.4. It has been more reliable and faster than Comcast's DNS servers. So what's the issue then? The issue is really Google's relentless data collection policies. Along with the fact they make their money primarily by selling advertising.
This led me onto a quest for a DNS server that wasn't so interesting in selling my data but might actually be interested in providing a good DNS experience. There are several good ones, https://www.opendns.com/ worked well but is mostly focused on DNS filtering which was not my primary reason for changing. I then tried https://dns.watch/ which worked well and I liked they don't log or sell information but after reading an article about DNS latency, it mentioned that it is very important to find one in your country because every time you type in a url it has to go to that server to resolve the ip address. Looking up the information on dns.watch it appears to be located in Germany. Having a DNS server in Germany can add latency and slow down your requests. That led me to looking for a more open-source solution.
Which led me to https://www.opennic.org/ where anyone can run their own DNS server. I thought about doing that, all you need is a Linux server, which I could easily set up. That would be the best solution, however they mentioned on their wiki they don't recommend running a DNS server from ones home, again its about latency. The less hops is always better. So instead of running my own DNS server I found one that is near that supports both ipv4 and ipv6 and does not log and supports dnscrypt. Been using it for a couple weeks and it is fast and been awesome so far.
I doubt the average person really cares about what DNS server they use, but why make it easier for huge companies to monitor what sites you visit in order to provide you with more ads. Of course DNS logging is only one way they collect information and certainly won't make you anonymous on the web. It may be impossible to stay anonymous in todays' world but you don't need to hand them all your personal information on a silver platter either :}
