Glad to hear it was able to help you close the loop. ChatGPT or Claude by Anthropic is well worth the $20 per month relative to what can be learned from conversing with AI. It can be the best teacher one has ever had.
This is a great post.... this alone is a great tip:
"Flip your router’s upstream DNS to Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 (primary) and 1.0.0.1 (secondary). If your firmware supports DoT, use tls://one.one.one.one.
This is completely FREE and takes minimal time and effort.
Cloudflare, in partnership with KPMG, conducts annual audits of their DNS service, 1.1.1.1, to ensure that they are not logging users' IP addresses and maintaining their privacy-first approach. These audits are meant to verify that Cloudflare adheres to its promise of not collecting or logging user data."
Yes, I see that now. I’m in. I know there are a lot of AI chats, I just never tried it before. You recommend Claude? One thing I didn’t understand was how to log into your router via IP. How would you do that?
Each LLM has its pros and cons in our experience. Claude is superior for coding. For DIY stuff, like “how do I do x”, ChatGPT seems to be more thorough.
I don’t understand how this works or how to do it, but I’m in if you can explain to a beginner. I’m using Proton, Linux, etc. Trying to educate myself.
If you are running proton and Linux, I must inform you that you are both humble and 0% a beginner.
Here is some guidance I gave someone else that seemed to help them: Log into your router via IP (frequently 192.168.1.1) or sometimes your ISP has a specific domain you can go to and enter login credentials to get to your router admin console. You can type your router manufacturer, model, and internet provider into ChatGPT and it should give you pretty clear guidance on how to get there. Then look for a DNS field. There, you can change your ISP default to 1.1.1.1 (cloudflare) or 9.9.9.9 (quad9 in Switzerland). This will get you there. Let me know if you have any other questions.
If your Orbi is tunneling all traffic through a VPN, changing the WAN-side DNS from the ISP default to Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 only matters if the VPN client actually lets that DNS traffic through unchanged.
Most consumer VPN services push their own DNS servers down the tunnel to prevent “DNS leaks” (I know ProtonVPN does this). In that case the router will silently swap your router's DNS for the VPN provider’s resolver, and your tweak has no effect except as a fallback if the tunnel drops.
Some VPN clients (or custom OpenVPN/WireGuard configs) allow custom DNS. If your Orbi’s VPN tab has a box that says “Use these DNS servers” and you enter 1.1.1.1 there, the queries will ride inside the encrypted tunnel to Cloudflare. Your ISP still can’t see them, but now your DNS privacy is in Cloudflare’s hands instead of the VPN company’s.
Performance gains are marginal once everything is inside a VPN; the extra 30–60 ms of tunnel latency usually dwarfs any speed difference between resolvers. But Cloudflare may still be a bit faster or more reliable than a small VPN provider’s DNS in distant regions.
VPN would be an extra layer. In some respects, changing your DNS setting like recommended in the post adds a VPN to your router, so you have a VPN at the router level instead of the device level.
For some people (well, me), "Flip your router’s upstream DNS..." is meaning less. I gather it's maybe, "Set your router's DNS to..."? I can log in to my router (or whatever it my Internet black box is) by an App or an IP address. And somewhere there is a DNS setting? (Brain just has memory problems.)
Yes, exactly. Log into your router via IP (frequently 192.168.1.1) or sometimes Verizon has a specific domain you can go to and enter login credentials to get to your router admin console. You can type your router manufacturer, model, and internet provider into ChatGPT and it should give you pretty clear guidance on how to get there. Then look for a DNS field. There, you can change it to your ISP default to 1.1.1.1 (cloudflare) or 9.9.9.9 (quad9 in Switzerland). This will get you there. Let me know if you have any other questions.
I agree with SoP’s response and also your comment. 9.9.9.9 is a totally acceptable alternative, in my opinion. I honestly should have mentioned it. Nice comment!
Will look into that. Though Switzerland's place as a privacy sanctuary may be coming to an end. There are some new laws in the works that are anti-privacy.
I just used Chat GPT for the first time and got all the info I needed. Thank you so much for this information.
Glad to hear it was able to help you close the loop. ChatGPT or Claude by Anthropic is well worth the $20 per month relative to what can be learned from conversing with AI. It can be the best teacher one has ever had.
I’m on T mobile.
This is a great post.... this alone is a great tip:
"Flip your router’s upstream DNS to Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 (primary) and 1.0.0.1 (secondary). If your firmware supports DoT, use tls://one.one.one.one.
This is completely FREE and takes minimal time and effort.
Cloudflare, in partnership with KPMG, conducts annual audits of their DNS service, 1.1.1.1, to ensure that they are not logging users' IP addresses and maintaining their privacy-first approach. These audits are meant to verify that Cloudflare adheres to its promise of not collecting or logging user data."
Yes, I see that now. I’m in. I know there are a lot of AI chats, I just never tried it before. You recommend Claude? One thing I didn’t understand was how to log into your router via IP. How would you do that?
Each LLM has its pros and cons in our experience. Claude is superior for coding. For DIY stuff, like “how do I do x”, ChatGPT seems to be more thorough.
I don’t understand how this works or how to do it, but I’m in if you can explain to a beginner. I’m using Proton, Linux, etc. Trying to educate myself.
If you are running proton and Linux, I must inform you that you are both humble and 0% a beginner.
Here is some guidance I gave someone else that seemed to help them: Log into your router via IP (frequently 192.168.1.1) or sometimes your ISP has a specific domain you can go to and enter login credentials to get to your router admin console. You can type your router manufacturer, model, and internet provider into ChatGPT and it should give you pretty clear guidance on how to get there. Then look for a DNS field. There, you can change your ISP default to 1.1.1.1 (cloudflare) or 9.9.9.9 (quad9 in Switzerland). This will get you there. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Forgive the ignorance here, but how does this interact with a VPN service such as Mullvad?
I think my proton vpn supersedes the router dns so if you are on that, it’s moot. But are all your devices on vpn all the time? :-)
This is the thing. The person reading this is probably covered, but ‘smart’ devices and those of friends and family visitors are likely not…
what about using something like a Netgear Orbi router, with and network wide VPN? Would switching to 1.1.1.1 make any difference at that point?
If your Orbi is tunneling all traffic through a VPN, changing the WAN-side DNS from the ISP default to Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 only matters if the VPN client actually lets that DNS traffic through unchanged.
Most consumer VPN services push their own DNS servers down the tunnel to prevent “DNS leaks” (I know ProtonVPN does this). In that case the router will silently swap your router's DNS for the VPN provider’s resolver, and your tweak has no effect except as a fallback if the tunnel drops.
Some VPN clients (or custom OpenVPN/WireGuard configs) allow custom DNS. If your Orbi’s VPN tab has a box that says “Use these DNS servers” and you enter 1.1.1.1 there, the queries will ride inside the encrypted tunnel to Cloudflare. Your ISP still can’t see them, but now your DNS privacy is in Cloudflare’s hands instead of the VPN company’s.
Performance gains are marginal once everything is inside a VPN; the extra 30–60 ms of tunnel latency usually dwarfs any speed difference between resolvers. But Cloudflare may still be a bit faster or more reliable than a small VPN provider’s DNS in distant regions.
hope this helps
This is tremendously helpful thank you 🙏
My pleasure! Glad it helped. Thank you for taking your privacy seriously in an age when many do not
No worries.
VPN would be an extra layer. In some respects, changing your DNS setting like recommended in the post adds a VPN to your router, so you have a VPN at the router level instead of the device level.
For some people (well, me), "Flip your router’s upstream DNS..." is meaning less. I gather it's maybe, "Set your router's DNS to..."? I can log in to my router (or whatever it my Internet black box is) by an App or an IP address. And somewhere there is a DNS setting? (Brain just has memory problems.)
Yes, exactly. Log into your router via IP (frequently 192.168.1.1) or sometimes Verizon has a specific domain you can go to and enter login credentials to get to your router admin console. You can type your router manufacturer, model, and internet provider into ChatGPT and it should give you pretty clear guidance on how to get there. Then look for a DNS field. There, you can change it to your ISP default to 1.1.1.1 (cloudflare) or 9.9.9.9 (quad9 in Switzerland). This will get you there. Let me know if you have any other questions.
I agree with SoP’s response and also your comment. 9.9.9.9 is a totally acceptable alternative, in my opinion. I honestly should have mentioned it. Nice comment!
Will look into that. Though Switzerland's place as a privacy sanctuary may be coming to an end. There are some new laws in the works that are anti-privacy.
Absolutely nothing lol