Recommended Public DNS Servers in 2021

Updated: December, 2020

DNS (the Domain Name System) is the service that maps domain names to IP addresses. Computers don’t understand host names or website addresses, they only understand IP addresses, which unfortunately humans have a bit of a hard time remembering and connecting to specific websites. It’s like trying to dial your home phone by typing the word “home” on your phone, it just doesn’t work like that. You need to know a phone number before dialing it. That’s where DNS comes in, basically a phone book for websites, only instead of the phone number, you would find an IP address.

Like any service, you will notice there are several choices when it comes to phone books. You have your Yellow and White pages and local publications alike. Same goes for DNS services. They are provided by different companies and don’t necessarily contain the same information or routing habits.

If you are not familiar with DNS and what it does, we recommend this introduction to DNS tutorial by Eli the Computer Guy which should help shed some light on the matter. You can also find a more detailed list of DNS services if you are interested in alternatives to the ones we present in this article.

Your ISP sets you up with their own DNS server(s) by default in order to handle the DNS requests and they generally do a decent job. However, the problem with DNS requests is that they are not secure (travel the Internet in plain-text), therefore DNS hijacking for censorship or blocking purposes is common in several countries. It is also common for ISPs to keep logs of DNS requests, meaning that they are essentially archiving your browsing history. Another problem with ISP DNS is the common practice of hijacking erroneous DNS responses to serve static pages of their own. Last but not least, ISP DNS servers can also be quite unreliable and slow compared to some of the well known public DNS services.

This is where public, 3rd party DNS services come to the rescue. Services such as Cloudflare DNSGoogle Public DNSOpenDNS or Level3 also log DNS queries, and you can check the specific type of logging that they practice directly in their privacy policy. Even having said that, theses services are still better to use than the DNS services your ISP will provide. The reason is that your ISP has your personal information already. When they log DNS queries, they have personal information to tie it up to. With 3rd party DNS services, identification is unlikely to be done by the ISP, even though it can be done, but it isn’t as easy as enabling logging on their own servers.

Some public DNS services provide some extras, such as ad-blocking, malware sites blocking, tracking blocking at the DNS level. Even if you use an antivirus and anti-malware software, DNS blocking acts as an extra protection layer and it stops malicious sites before they are even loaded onto your device.

Another interesting feature that may be useful to some users, is the categories filtering that can be enabled with some DNS services for the purpose of parental control or limiting web site resources on a PC to specific business usage only.

Stability and Speed

The services we have included in this section are Cloudflare DNS, OpenDNS, GoogleDNS and Level3DNS, because they have similar features and their performance is about the same.

Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1)

Cloudflare DNS is arguably the best public DNS service currently. It is very fast, given the fact that Cloudflare operates a massive global network with data center presence in over 100 countries. The DNS servers addresses 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 are very easy to remember, so that people can set them on their devices without having to visit the official site to get the listed DNS addresses. It is worth noting that Cloudflare is actively developing and promoting a long-needed “fix” for the weaknesses of traditional DNS protocol by implementing DNS encryption.

OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220)

OpenDNS also known as the Cisco Umbrella, is a widely used DNS service with some great features such as the ability to filter content via a multitude of parameters including but not limited to adult content and identity theft protection. You can read more about their different plans here as they also offer a premium package.

Today however we are discussing the free service that OpenDNS provides since the difference is only the amount of time that data is collected for and the exclusion feature intended to establish a “locked-down” environment as they call it. We feel that the customizable filtering feature is probably one of the more attractive ones as it allows you to filter content based on your needs. Other services usually focus on adult content or a generic niche, but there are cases where the possibility to customize the type of filtering can be a game-changer.

GoogleDNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)

Google Public DNS is quite popular, and this will probably increase as the giant Google expands in coverage. While fast and very well supported, we feel that the DNS service has a pretty big down-side which is data collection. It’s a well known fact that Google makes a living from ads and from collecting data which is then used to return relevant results to specific queries. While this is not necessarily a major security breach due to the fact that GoogleDNS does not have access to your personal information, keep in mind that we are still dealing with data collection that can lead to sensitive information being disclosed.

You can find the guides to setting up GoogleDNS here. On the same website, you will have documentation available regarding more in-depth explanations of services and features in case you are interested.
An important aspect regarding Google DNS is that their DNS servers are hard-codded in many devices as well as streaming apps which may break streaming unblocking using VPNs. If you use VPNs for streaming and you’re being blocked, check our guide on how to fix VPN/DNS streaming blocking on Android TV by blocking Google DNS.

Level3DNS (4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2)

Level3DNS offers a wide variety of products meant to suit different industries and needs. The most important thing to remember about them is that they are one of the biggest Internet carriers, meaning that a large part of Internet traffic go through them. They also offer a free DNS service which works well and keeps your content relevant.

Since Level3 is such a huge player in the telecom business, with presence all over the world, it’s expected of them to have a reliable service and to keep things running smoothly. They offer the service simply because of their ability to do so, and they do not charge for the DNS service that helps millions of queries go through every hour.

As with the previously mentioned DNS servers, please keep in mind that they do log queries, but they are one of the most reliable services out there which is what makes them a good fit into the “Stability and Speed” category.

Privacy Focused

For the privacy focused services we looked to the DNS services that do not log queries and that offer some sort of additional protection such as ad blocking, malware blocking.

NextDNS

NextDNS is relatively new, but we can honestly say that we are impressed with their DNS service and won’t hesitate to recommend it as a main DNS option. To find out more, check our review of NextDNS.

The service can be used for free but it also has paid plans featuring unlimited DNS queries. The free plan is limited to 300.000 DNS queries / month, but that should be sufficient for most users. NextDNS supports encrypted DNS using DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS, filtering for adblocking, malware and tracking blocking, parental control and more. By signing-up for a free account, you have access to a well-made dashboard where you can configure the filtering capabilities. Their privacy policy is clean and simple.

DNS.Watch (84.200.69.80 and 84.200.70.40)

DNS.Watch is a public DNS service, known for their no logging policy. They provide both IPV4 and IPv6 public DNS servers and have support for DNSSEC (note that DNSSEC doesn’t mean “encrypted DNS” – it is still in clear-text). The disadvantage we see with dns.watch is related to speed and reliability, since it is hosted in Germany so there will be a high latency if you use it on other continents than Europe (for example, over 100ms latency from USA).

DNSCrypt

DNSCrypt features support for encrypted DNS queries but it will work with their software only, so it doesn’t work out of the box by setting up the DNS servers on your devices. All other DNS services we presented so far do not require you to install anything your computer, only to configure your network connection with the appropriate parameters. When it comes to DNSCrypt however, things are a bit different and we will explain why.

DNSCrypt actually encrypts the DNS queries you make as opposed to leaving them plain clear text easy to intercept like other DNS services do.

Comodo Secure DNS (8.26.56.26 and 8.20.247.20)

Comodo Secure DNS offers quite a few paid services, but their DNS service is free to use and recommended to anyone, especially those who are interested in a more reliable, faster, and safer Internet experience (in their own words). It’s true, your Internet experience can be a lot safer and will definitely be more relevant once you opt for a different DNS service.

Keep in mind that different services offer different features, and while our review is not done in any particular order, the perfect DNS service will vary from user to user depending on actual needs.

OpenNIC Project

OpenNIC is a bit different in that it offers specific DNS servers depending on your region. The other DNS services present gave you one universal address that would resolve in different servers around the world based on your location. With OpenNIC you receive a different DNS server for different locations around the world, all of them provided by volunteers. You can find the full list of servers with an updated status here.

There is a variety of information available on each server. Apart from letting you know if the service is up or down, there is information on the encryption type (if any) of the server and whether information is logged or not. It’s a bit different from the other DNS services we covered previously, but we found that the performance is great and if the security level of the resolver meets your standards, we recommend giving it a try.

In conclusion, it’s very important to know what type of DNS service you need. It’s not a matter of people that are more focused on security than others, but rather based on the need for certain features. As mentioned before, the DNS services that your ISP provides is most likely not the most trustworthy. There have been cases in countries such as Ukraine or Turkey when uprisings and social events were completely blocked from reaching the queries due to the DNS hijacking the governments instated. Blocking of piracy and porn sites through DNS is also a common practice in several countries.

We’re not necessarily implying that it’s mandatory to change your DNS service, but we see no real reason why you shouldn’t, especially with all the available free alternatives out there.

6 thoughts on “Recommended Public DNS Servers in 2021”

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.