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Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

nextdns.io

41–50 of 151 posts

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#42
post #23

I don't understand why any privacy conscious person would choose a hosted service instead of self-hosting your own solution. Implementing the whole thing (modulo the anycast IP, which is the only thing I did not use) is easy. I have a docker-compose file which does the whole stack: 1. Unbound DNS which provides DNS-over-TLS service at port 853. It forward request to my local pihole's 53 port. 2. Pihole forward reques…

Even if the setup is easy, production-grade hosting is not.

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#43
post #2

We've been working super hard on nextdns.io, a cloud-based private DNS service that gives you full control over what is allowed or blocked on your devices. Here is a few things you can do with it: - Block malicious websites, trackers, ads, and more by combining the most popular blocklists out there, all updated in real-time (100+ lists to choose from). - Set your own privacy requirements: you decide what type of logs…

How about geoblocking? Have you considered adding a smart DNS like functionality?

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#44

Nice. DNS has grown notoriously complex over the years and it is hard work to run a standards compliant service. Congratulations. A few suggestions: - Auto-detect OS and suggest specific setup instructions right on the landing page? - The website goes blank when I block third-party JavaScript from loading. Can you please see if you can fix that? - simplednscrypt has been handy for me to DoT/DoH/DNSCrypt with AdGuard…

Thanks!

> Auto-detect OS and suggest specific setup instructions right on the landing page?

It should already pre-select your OS tab on my.nextdns.io on the Setup page? If that's not the case, then it's probably a bug.

> The website goes blank when I block third-party JavaScript from loading. Can you please see if you can fix that?

Weird, we will have a look.

> simplednscrypt has been handy for me to DoT/DoH/DNSCrypt with AdGuard DNS on PC. You could include instructions in the Windows section for that? https://dnscrypt.info/implementations/

You can use your custom sdns:// endpoint listed on the Setup page, we assumed users using dnscrypt clients would know what this means. Good point, we will add setup instructions for it.

> Provide a generic DNS endpoint like AdGuard does?

We already have them, we decided to not show them on the website as it may confuse users. We may add them back.

> What's the backend that fronts DoH, DoT, and DNSCrypt queries? Is it simply relayed to Cloudflare underneath the covers? How do you do that?

It's a custom-made backend, and we recurse using unbound (we don't forward to cloudflare or anything like that).

> Re: Privacy Policy: "We store user data following modern security standards". What user data is stored using what modern standards? I like the terse policy document, but I feel there needs to be a fine print detailing data collection and data retention.

We will definitely improve that, we had to make some calls on priorities for the launch.

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#45
post #42
post #23

I don't understand why any privacy conscious person would choose a hosted service instead of self-hosting your own solution. Implementing the whole thing (modulo the anycast IP, which is the only thing I did not use) is easy. I have a docker-compose file which does the whole stack: 1. Unbound DNS which provides DNS-over-TLS service at port 853. It forward request to my local pihole's 53 port. 2. Pihole forward reques…

Even if the setup is easy, production-grade hosting is not.

Not saying my setup has lower reliability than the hosted service (did nextdns.io promise any SLA?). For the added privacy, the potential lower reliability is a risk that I'm willing to take.

Even with this setup there are ways to increase reliability with-in the budget/skill set of a normal engineer, e.g. run two RasPi with keepalived and run VRRP on your routers. As a last resort, I can disable the "Private DNS" setting on my phone if my DNS is down and I can't fix quickly enough remotely.

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#46
post #2

We've been working super hard on nextdns.io, a cloud-based private DNS service that gives you full control over what is allowed or blocked on your devices. Here is a few things you can do with it: - Block malicious websites, trackers, ads, and more by combining the most popular blocklists out there, all updated in real-time (100+ lists to choose from). - Set your own privacy requirements: you decide what type of logs…

I tried using it. I'm in India, and while Cloudflare and Google DNS consistently resolve in 60-70ms, nextdns takes between 400-700ms for the first resolution and consistently 250ms for the same query repeated (I presume it caches the results?) Should I assume you've gotten a huge spike in traffic because of this HN post? If yes, I don't mind trying again in a few days, but unless things improve, I wouldn't be able to…

Try to do MTR and check for the routing.

I am from Sri Lanka and I get following over IPv6 using dig,

80-120ms for Nextdns (92ms avg ping)

75-140ms for Google (61ms avg ping)

70-90ms for Cloudflare (75ms avg ping)

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#47
post #2

We've been working super hard on nextdns.io, a cloud-based private DNS service that gives you full control over what is allowed or blocked on your devices. Here is a few things you can do with it: - Block malicious websites, trackers, ads, and more by combining the most popular blocklists out there, all updated in real-time (100+ lists to choose from). - Set your own privacy requirements: you decide what type of logs…

I am in the East Coast with 100Mbit fiber:

dig @5.182.208.203 google.com ;; Query time: 390 msec

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#48
post #2

We've been working super hard on nextdns.io, a cloud-based private DNS service that gives you full control over what is allowed or blocked on your devices. Here is a few things you can do with it: - Block malicious websites, trackers, ads, and more by combining the most popular blocklists out there, all updated in real-time (100+ lists to choose from). - Set your own privacy requirements: you decide what type of logs…

Good on ya. How is this all being paid for? How are you making money? Is there a subscription fee?

It's free during beta, then freemium with low pricing tiers (something like free up to 500,000 DNS queries a month, then $0.99/month). We will tweak later based on actual costs at scale, but it will follow this logic.

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#49
I've been using adguard dns for a while and while it's an amazing service for mobile, the thing I don't like about it is that it's super aggressive at blocking malware sites and sometimes even blocks legit sites with no way to whitelist.

I believe your service would also solves this problem. Congrats on the launch too!

Re: Show HN: nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole

#50
post #23

I don't understand why any privacy conscious person would choose a hosted service instead of self-hosting your own solution. Implementing the whole thing (modulo the anycast IP, which is the only thing I did not use) is easy. I have a docker-compose file which does the whole stack: 1. Unbound DNS which provides DNS-over-TLS service at port 853. It forward request to my local pihole's 53 port. 2. Pihole forward reques…

A sidenote -- Anycast is trivially easy to setup; with their current host, Vultr, offering essentially turn-key solutions.

There’s a large distinction between BGP announcing and running a properly balanced anycast network. Vultr is not designed for this, they have limited bgp community strings - so running an anycast network there will work either only with select locations, or with sinkholes pulling in traffic from far away.
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