Alternative DNS services

This article lists domain name system (DNS) services that may replace an internet service provider's DNS service. To use one of these servers, see Domain name resolution.

Cisco Umbrella (formerly OpenDNS)

OpenDNS provided free alternative nameservers, was bought by Cisco in Nov. 2016 and continues to offer OpenDNS as end-user product of its "Umbrella" product suite with focus on Security Enforcement, Security Intelligence and Web Filtering. The old nameservers still work but are pre-configured to block adult content:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
2620:0:ccc::2
2620:0:ccd::2

Cloudflare

Cloudflare provides a service committed to never writing the querying IP addresses to disk and wiping all logs within 24 hours, with the exception of providing data to APNIC labs for research purposes. APNIC and Cloudfare committed to treat all data with high privacy standards in their research agreement statement.

1.1.1.1
1.0.0.1
2606:4700:4700::1111
2606:4700:4700::1001

Comodo

Comodo provides another IPv4 set, with optional (non-free) web-filtering. Implied in this feature is that the service hijacks the queries.

8.26.56.26 
8.20.247.20

DNS.WATCH

DNS.WATCH focuses on neutrality and security and provides two servers located in Germany with no logging and with DNSSEC enabled. Note they welcome commercial sponsorship.

84.200.69.80                # resolver1.dns.watch 
84.200.70.40                # resolver2.dns.watch
2001:1608:10:25::1c04:b12f  # resolver1.dns.watch
2001:1608:10:25::9249:d69b  # resolver2.dns.watch

Google

Google's nameservers can be used as an alternative:

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
2001:4860:4860::8888
2001:4860:4860::8844

Mullvad

Mullvad provides a public, non-logging DNS server.

 193.138.218.74

OpenNIC

OpenNIC provides free uncensored nameservers located in multiple countries. The full list of public servers is available at servers.opennic.org and a shortlist of nearest nameservers for optimal performance is generated on their home page.

To retrieve a list of nearest nameservers, an API is also available and returns, based on the URL parameters provided, a list of nameservers in the desired format. For example to get the 200 nearest IPv4 servers, one can use https://api.opennicproject.org/geoip/?list&ipv=4&res=200&adm=0&bl&wl.

Alternatively, the anycast servers below can be used; while reliable their latency fluctuates a lot.

Worldwide Anycast:

185.121.177.177
169.239.202.202
2a05:dfc7:5::53
2a05:dfc7:5::5353

Note: The use of OpenNIC DNS servers will allow host name resolution in the traditional Top-Level Domain (TLD) registries, but also in OpenNIC or afiliated operated namespaces: .o, .libre, .dyn...

Tip: The tool opennic-up — automates the renewal of the DNS servers with the most responsive OpenNIC servers

https://github.com/kewlfft/opennic-up || opennic-up^AUR

Quad9

Quad9 is a free DNS service founded by IBM, Packet Clearing House and Global Cyber Alliance; its primary unique feature is a blocklist which avoids resolving known malicious domains. The addresses below are worldwide anycast.

"Secure", with blocklist and DNSSEC:

9.9.9.9
149.112.112.112
2620:fe::fe
2620:fe::9

No blocklist, no DNSSEC:

9.9.9.10
149.112.112.10
2620:fe::10

UncensoredDNS

UncensoredDNS is a free uncensored DNS service. It is run by a private individual and consists in one anycast served by multiple servers and one unicast node hosted in Denmark.

91.239.100.100   # anycast.censurfridns.dk
89.233.43.71     # unicast.censurfridns.dk
2001:67c:28a4::  # anycast.censurfridns.dk
2a01:3a0:53:53:: # unicast.censurfridns.dk

Note: Its servers listen to port 5353 as well as the standard port 53. This can be used in case your ISP hijacks port 53.

Yandex

Yandex.DNS^{[dead link 2022-09-17 ⓘ]} has servers in Russia, Eastern and Western Europe and has three options, Basic, Safe and Family.

Basic - no traffic filtering:

77.88.8.8
77.88.8.1
2a02:6b8::feed:0ff
2a02:6b8:0:1::feed:0ff

Safe - protection from infected and fraudulent sites:

77.88.8.88
77.88.8.2
2a02:6b8::feed:bad
2a02:6b8:0:1::feed:bad

Family - protection from dangerous sites and sites with adult content:

77.88.8.7
77.88.8.3
2a02:6b8::feed:a11
2a02:6b8:0:1::feed:a11

gollark: There are mods for it. I don't know if you can do it on 1.14.4 with the mess going on with that.

gollark: The Minecraft one.

gollark: It would be cool if the server had some mod or other to bridge its chat to a Discord channel here.

gollark: It should work if you don't go around building loads of stuff.

gollark: Though your CPU is worse than that, I guess.