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Originally published at: Surfshark Launches All-New Privacy-First DNS For Free

Surfshark is expanding its commitment to online privacy by launching a free, public DNS service that refuses to track or log any user activity. With most people relying on DNS servers from their Internet providers, this is a bold step toward offering better privacy tools to everyone—not just VPN users. The announcement was made by…

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The article doesn’t give the IP or FQDN, at least I couldn’t find them so:

194.169.169.169. dns.surfsharkdns.com

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This sounds pretty good. Anxious to hear feedback about how well it works. Thanks for sharing troy.

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Is their instructions on how to set this up in Nvidia Shield " Their instructions aren’t real clear .

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I set it up on my router.

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I can’t do that . It’s a spectum router .

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I set my Spectrum router with it

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Setup is done through your router if using a Shield Pro

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My set up is straight weird . Do I have to chance it to wifi for it to work ?

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No. It works with wired or wireless. You need to read up on DNS some and what this does me thinks. :+1:

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@scooterboy952 , it’s simply a public DNS server, supports encrypt and standard DNS from the articles description.

The most common way a public DNS server is applied is in the network configuration setup. It can be setup at device level or on your router or both, up to you.

Most system allow two entries however DNS resolver supports up to three, when the DNS name is resolved it starts with the first server in the list, based on the result different things can happen, if the result is the IP address is found then it is returned to the resolver and it’s done, if it’s not found the the next DNS server is tried and so on until the IP is returned or a failure is returned. There are actual four or five possible return codes but that pretty deep in the weeds, you get the general idea.

You can typically set it up at the router level through settings, I don’t use a shield but it is Android so you may have to reconfigure networking to do it on the Shield (again I don’t know, don’t have a shield)

Both Android/Google TV OSs and Fire TV OSs don’t have any easy way to set only DNS servers, they should have but …

On other Android based devices it can be set by reconfiguring network settings (pain in the..) or more easily with ADB.

To see the current settings (using ADB):

sheldon:/ $ settings get global dns_servers

194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4 (result is displayed)

sheldon:/ $ settings put global “dns_servers” “194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4”

Couple of notes here, these commands were executed from a shell running on an Android streaming device.
“Sheldon” is the host name and everything before the $ sign is the shell prompt and not part of the command.
The double quotes are optional.
The two IP addresses are examples, the first is for adguard I think, the second is Google’s open DNS server.

The command breakdown:

“settings” is the command catagory for various settings in Android.

“put” and “get” are actions

“global” is a scope of the action and is required for this

“dns_server” is the property you are changing

“194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4” are a comma separated list of dotted decimal IP addresses, up to three that you will be setting the property to when using a “put” operator. (Not used with the “get” operation.)

If you use remote ADB shell the command will be:

adb shell settings get global dns_servers

194.242.2.4,8.8.4.4 (not typed, this is the output)

The “get” command is completely safe to use as it “gets” the current settings and displays them, the “put” command changes the setting so, more care should be exercised with the “put” command.

You asked! :astonished_face:

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Thanks for your info. I may try to install it on my Spectrum router . Do you know the IP number to get in to that router ?

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It’s locked down (at least mine is). Did it right through the app

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TDUK has a dns switcher you can get off the google play.and there is a manual setting to puut in your own or choose from a list.

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Unless I did this wrong, which is a possibility, it killed my internet. Luckily I remembered the steps and put it back to “automatic”. It had 2 numbers listed, IPv4 and IPv6. I put the Ipv4 number in. Was that right? Don’t know. Help, if you can.
Thanks

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Hi can this dns be put on your android cellphone? I dont have vpn on my phone or my z11 pro max Is there a video to walk you through this?

Is there a video on how to set up this dns on my Formuler z11 promax?

Or do I need to set up it on my att fiber? Is there a video on this as well?

Thank you