A look at AdGuard DNS
AdGuard unveiled the final version of the company's DNS provider service in December 2018 promising privacy, security, and high performance.
DNS is one of the cornerstones of the Internet. DNS, broken down to its core, is like a telephone directory for domains. Whenever servers are accessed, e.g. by clicking on a link in an email or on a website, DNS is used to look up the IP address of the server or device hosting the content.
In technical terms: domain names are send to a DNS resolver which returns the IP address required for the connection to the device that wants to make the request.
For many Internet users, it is their ISP that handles DNS automatically. Usually, that is not the fastest nor best option; some ISPs collect the data and sell it.
Third-party DNS services promise a lot: faster performance, better privacy and security, and add-on features such as filtering options to block unwanted content like advertisement or non-child friendly content automatically.
AdGuard DNS
AdGuard DNS is not a new service but it has been released as a final version in December 2018. The service features two different DNS server pairs that users may add to their device:
- Standard: 176.103.130.130 and 176.103.130.131
- Family protection: 176.103.130.132 and 176.103.130.134
AdGuard DNS supports DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS next to that which encrypt DNS queries.
- DNS-over-TLS: dns.adguard.com (Default) or dns-family.adguard.com (Family Protection)
- DNS-over-HTTPS: https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query (Default) or https://dns-family.adguard.com/dns-query (Family Protection)
Sign-up or registration is not required; users who require detailed instructions can open the help page on the Adguard website. There you find IPv6 addresses as well.
A quick DNS Benchmark check showed that Adguard's DNS servers perform equally well as Cloudflare DNS servers, Google DNS, or Open DNS.
AdGuard DNS blocks requests to "known" tracking or advertisement domains automatically. The main difference between the Standard and Family Protection servers is that the latter blocks content inappropriate to minors as well.
These built-in protections are never 100% but they block a good share of content automatically.
Russian company AdGuard is best known for its (paid) ad-blocking solution. The DNS server is free of charge and can be used by anyone.
Some users may not want to send their entire DNS traffic to a Russian company; others may distrust Google or Cloudflare, or their ISP. Those who want to be in control may want to take a look at Pi Hole instead, a local solution based on Raspberry Pi devices.
Now You: Which DNS service do you use, and why?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.