Maintaining online privacy has become essential. Internet Service Providers track websites you visit, advertisers build profiles from your browsing patterns, and cybercriminals monitor unsecured connections. Most people know about VPNs and private browsing modes — but far fewer think about DNS, a foundational layer where significant privacy leakage occurs every day.
What Is DNS and Why Does It Matter?
DNS — the Domain Name System — functions as the internet's phonebook. When you type a website address into your browser, your device sends a DNS query to convert that human-readable name into a numerical IP address that servers understand. Without DNS, you'd need to memorize the IP address of every site you want to visit.
This lookup happens for every website, every app, and every service you use. And by default, those lookups travel unencrypted over the network — visible to your ISP, network administrators, and anyone who can see your traffic. Your DNS queries tell a complete story about your browsing habits, even if the actual content of your connections is encrypted via HTTPS.
The Privacy Problem With Default DNS
Most people use whatever DNS server their ISP assigns by default. ISPs can — and often do — log these queries, use them to build advertising profiles, and sell that data to third parties. Some ISPs have even been caught injecting ads into DNS responses.
Beyond ISP surveillance, unencrypted DNS queries are vulnerable to:
- Eavesdropping: Anyone on your network can see which sites you're looking up
- DNS spoofing: Malicious actors can intercept queries and return fraudulent results, redirecting you to phishing sites
- DNS hijacking: Some ISPs redirect mistyped domains to their own search pages rather than returning the expected error
How Privacy DNS Fixes This
Privacy DNS services address these issues through encryption. Two primary standards have emerged:
- DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH): Sends DNS queries inside standard HTTPS traffic, making them indistinguishable from regular web browsing and encrypting them end-to-end
- DNS-over-TLS (DoT): Encrypts DNS queries using the same TLS protocol that secures HTTPS connections, operating on a dedicated port
Both protocols prevent your ISP from seeing which domains you're querying and protect against interception and spoofing. StormyCloud operates a public DNS service with both DoH and DoT support, designed specifically for privacy-conscious users.
Benefits of Using Privacy DNS
- Enhanced security: Encrypted queries can't be intercepted or spoofed mid-transit
- Reduced data trails: Your ISP can no longer log and sell your browsing activity via DNS
- Ad and tracker blocking: Many privacy DNS services block known advertising and tracking domains at the DNS level, before they can even load
- Phishing protection: Malicious domains can be blocked before your browser ever reaches them
- Faster resolution: Modern privacy DNS services often provide faster response times than default ISP resolvers
Notable Privacy DNS Services
Several options are worth considering:
- StormyCloud Public DNS: Our own privacy-focused resolver with DoH and DoT support, operated by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with no commercial data incentives
- Quad9 (9.9.9.9): A nonprofit-operated resolver with strong privacy policies and malicious domain blocking
- Cloudflare (1.1.1.1): Fast global resolver with a strong privacy commitment and 24-hour query log deletion policy
When choosing a DNS provider, look for clear privacy policies, no-logging commitments, and ideally nonprofit or independent operation without commercial data incentives.
Additional Tips for Maintaining Online Privacy
Privacy DNS is an important layer, but it works best as part of a broader approach:
- Use a password manager to create and store unique, strong passwords for every account
- Enable two-factor authentication on email, banking, and any account that supports it
- Review social media privacy settings and limit what you share publicly
- Use a VPN on public Wi-Fi to encrypt your entire connection
- Clear cookies and cached data regularly, or use a browser that does this automatically
- Be skeptical of links in emails and messages — verify before clicking
- Consider privacy-focused search engines that don't build query profiles
Taking Control
Privacy DNS is one of the easiest high-impact changes you can make to your online setup. Switching takes minutes, the performance difference is negligible, and the privacy benefit is immediate. Your ISP loses visibility into your browsing activity. Your queries become resistant to interception and spoofing. And if you choose a resolver with ad-blocking, you get cleaner browsing as a bonus.
Combined with a VPN, end-to-end encrypted messaging, and good security hygiene, privacy DNS is a meaningful component of a strong personal security posture. The tools exist — using them is a choice worth making.