If you want to visit a website like Facebook, you won’t be typing its IP address 31.13.72.36 instead you will type facebook.com. So what you entered was the domain name and your browser is resolving the IP address from a DNS server to load the page. In short, the DNS service is like a phonebook which lookups the IP addresses of a domain name in its records.
By default, you are using the DNS resolver provided by your ISP, however it lacks privacy and speed. Moreover, the ISP can use DNS blocking to prevent users from locating a website on the internet. So to deal with such concerns, we have alternative resolvers like Google Public DNS and OpenDNS. To add to this list, CloudFlare, a web performance and security firm launched a new consumer DNS service on 1st April 2018.
According to CloudFlare, their DNS service will be privacy respecting. They also assured that no querying IP addresses will be written to disks. In addition, they will wipe any logs taken for preventing abuse and debug issues within 24 hours. CloudFlare also managed to get their hands on two memorable IPs viz 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 for their DNS service. They also ensured that the new DNS service will support both DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS for encryption and security.
DNS Server addresses of CloudFlare
- 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 for IPv4
- 2606:4700:4700::1111 and 2606:4700:4700::1001 for IPv6
According to DNSPerf, 1.1.1.1 is now the fastest DNS resolver globally. Moreover, users of the CloudFlare Authoritative DNS can get incredibly faster query results with their own DNS Resolver. If you want to try out CloudFlare’s DNS, visit https://1.1.1.1, you can find all the necessary instructions there. Hope the article was informative, Peace!