Cloudflare is taking on privacy through DNS

This past April 1st, Cloudflare rolled out a new DNS service that touts both speed and improved privacy.

The reasoning for a new DNS service is that the company is on a march to ever improve the Internet by means of security, privacy, and speed.

DNS is commonly described as the phone book for the Internet. It allows users to reach websites by way of a human-readable name that is translated to the series of numbers that the underlying network protocol uses. In the way that Cool Dude's telephone number might be 123-456-7890, the web address for "cooldude.com" might translate to 123.123.321.321.

By default, ISPs expect routers and other devices to be configured to use their DNS service, but there's no technical reason that any DNS server can't be used. Both Google and OpenDNS offer alternative services as well.

Some folks are reporting various issues in the comments of the announcement, but Cloudflare seems to have been expecting some of this for things like the address being blocked by some ISPs. It also looks like it has been active in resolving these issues.

If interested in giving it a try, load up the clever address https://1.1.1.1/ in your browser for more information.

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