Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS Service Makes the Internet More Private & Faster
Written by Lawrence Abrams / Courtesy of Bleeping Computer
Today, a free DNS resolution service called 1.1.1.1 was unveiled that makes looking up Internet address not only faster, but more private. This new service was created by APNIC, who owned the 1.1.1.1 address, and Cloudflare who will use their network to host the DNS service.
They made this service because they were concerned about the speed of existing DNS resolution services and because many of these services log your queries and even sell this data to third party services. With this in mind, they teamed up to provide a new service that is not only privacy centric, but also very fast as its runs on Cloudflare’s distributed network.
1.1.1.1 promises to protect your privacy
One of the main concerns that Cloudflare and APNIC have with existing DNS services is that some of them log your IP address and associated DNS queries when you use their services. This allows them to track every single site that you visit. Even worse, some of these services may sell your data to third-parties, who can then use it for delivering targeted advertisements.
1.1.1.1 changes this by promising to never write the IP address of a client to disk and to wipe all transaction logs within 24 hours.
“We began talking with browser manufacturers about what they would want from a DNS resolver. One word kept coming up: privacy. Beyond just a commitment not to use browsing data to help target ads, they wanted to make sure we would wipe all transaction logs within a week. That was an easy request. In fact, we knew we could go much further. We committed to never writing the querying IP addresses to disk and wiping all logs within 24 hours.” – Cloudflare
They further stated that they hired KPMG to audit their code and practices in order to make sure they keep to this commitment.
1.1.1.1 speeds up DNS resolution using Cloudflare’s network
Whenever you connect to a hostname, such as www.bleepingcomputer.com, your computer must first query a DNS resolution service in order to determine the IP address that the computer will connect to. If the DNS query takes too long, it makes it slower to connect to a site.
Using Cloudflare’s network and existing DNS infrastructure, 1.1.1.1 claims that they are now 28% faster than any other DNS service as rated by DNSPerf.
Getting started with 1.1.1.1 is easy
The good news is that 1.1.1.1 is a free DNS resolution service and it’s really easy to setup on your mobile device, computer, or router. If you are familiar with configuring a static DNS server, you can simply go into the settings of your device and configure it to use 1.1.1.1 as the DNS server.
Even better, is if you change your home router to use 1.1.1.1 as its DNS server, computers that connect to it and receive an IP address via DHCP will automatically use it as well.
For those who need some help changing the DNS server on your device, the 1.1.1.1 site has good instructions for the iPhone, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, and a router.
Read the original article over at BleepingComputer.com.
