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AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

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Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#92

I never liked the idea of using DNS services for filtering web content. For one, it seems like the wrong tool for the job. Filtered content can simply switch to identifying content by IP address instead of DNS, correct? Or change DNS constantly. And for two, of course there are concerns with handing someone your DNS queries in return for filtering...

Depends on what your goal is. If you have children and you want to avoid accidentally seeing porn or being delivered a malicious ad, DNS based blocking can be a great tool. Also if you just want to improve the general security and performance of your home network.

Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#93
post #77
post #40

Misleading claim: any external DNS server is not private. Your requests are directed to a third-party. I suspect data-mining you is how they pay their server bills. The correct technical solution for privacy is running your own DNS server locally.

> The correct technical solution for privacy is running your own DNS server locally. The ISP can still see requests the local DNS server sends to the Internet

If you use DNS-over-HTTPS on your local machine or LAN, your queries would be encrypted and safe from your ISP.

As mentioned in some other replies here, you can use vanilla DNScrypt [0] or cloudflared [1], or Pi-Hole with either one enabled, etc.

[0] https://dnscrypt.info/implementations/ [1] https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/dns-over-https/clo...

Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#96
post #61
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your goal is to get rid of ads, why would you use _anything_ made by an ad company?

Because some don't mind the text-based ads, but do mind the 10mb+ animated flashing overlay ads with audio that make the internet unusable.

Why not just stop using those websites. That's my policy.

Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#97
post #13

I’ve been using Pi-Hole on my home network and it’s amazing. Routinely 18-20%% of DNS requests are blocked. When my wife goes out onto another network she says she is shocked at how ugly her web browsing becomes (ads on nytimes, huffpo, etc). I highly recommend it. Am using it with cloudfare’s encrypted DNS just as one more middle finger to my ISP.

Do their paid versions have ads too?

Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#98
post #70
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your goal is to get rid of ads, why would you use _anything_ made by an ad company?

OP was actually somewhat inaccurate when he said "Google's". Intra is actually by Jigsaw, a separate Alphabet subsidiary. The difference is significant as Alphabet companies, though closely tied to Google (e.g. Jigsaw's website is a Google subdomain), are run independently. Perhaps more important is that the project is also open source: https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/intra

Run "independently" but financed by ad revenue, since that's where 90% of Google revenue comes from. "You can't make a person understand something if his salary depends on not understanding it".

Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#99
post #75

There's lots of "privacy" improving DNS servers, but none of them mention trying to remove unintentional DNS queries. It turns out lots of things will resolve anything that looks vaguely like a hostname to see if, in fact, they are a hostname. eg, "untitled.pdf". These queries get passed to your ISP, and then on towards the root name servers. So if you run a large nameserver, you quickly find that most of your DNS qu…

I'm not sure this works the way you say it works. NSEC records are provided by authority servers; they're a way for the delegated owner of "." to say that there aren't zones between .PCCW and .PE. They work because they have chained signatures. A recursive server can't generate NSEC records for the DNS root, and, obviously, wouldn't have to; any DNS server, DNSSEC or not, can accomplish what you're talking about with a simple "if" statement.

Re: AdGuard DNS: A Privacy-Oriented DNS Server

#100
post #4

Pi hole (free) is good for this kind of thing if you are at home https://pi-hole.net/ I found that pihole did too much so wrote my own. I dont think it has any users, except in my house but it seems to work https://github.com/time4tea-net/py-hole/blob/master/README.m...

But does it work on outside home and on 4G?

For 10$/year I am running a VPS server in Amsterdam with strongswan ([1] VPN server) and dnscrypt-proxy 2.0 ([2] DNS server which is dispersing queries to multiple DNSCrypt servers and also blocking various ads and bad agents) on it.

I also keep nginx to avoid pinging Apple or Google for checking if internet works (captive.apple.com, http://connectivitycheck.gstatic.com/generate_204 are re-routed to my own server).

Finally it is incredibly simple to use nginx to serve DNS-over-TLS from your own machine (so from my dnscypt-proxy) for using on Android Pie. Works on mobile as well. [3]

[1] https://strongswan.org/ [2] https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy [3] https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki/Connecting-t...

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