DNS Provider Quad9 moves to Switzerland

[harlan4096]

Not-For-Profit Domain Name System (DNS) provider Quad9 announced the move of its headquarters from California to Switzerland today.

Quad9 is a non-commercial DNS provider that does not collect personal information nor sell it. It is supported by donations and its sole product is the operation of its DNS service.

DNS services are used to "translate" domain names into IP addresses that computers use for communication. DNS providers are critical for privacy as they know each site that users access. Some use the information for marketing purposes or to sell them to the highest bidder.

The default DNS provider is usually the Internet Service Provider, but it is often not the fastest nor the most private one.

DNS Benchmark tools help users find a better provider, at least when it comes to speed.

What these tools don't do is provide users with other information, e.g. about the privacy policy of a service.

Quad9 made the deliberate decision to place its service under Swiss jurisdiction and thus privacy laws. Being one of the world's most user friendly privacy laws, the move to Switzerland was designed to boost Quad9's dedication to keeping user data private and secure further.

The company notes that all its users benefit from the move as the "Swiss Data Protection Act does not contain any restriction regarding the citizenship or residence of the individuals whose personal rights are to be protected by the law".  In other words: all Quad9 users have the same legal protection as Swiss citizens when using the service.

The move of headquarters "is being facilitated by SWITCH", a Swiss foundation that operates critical infrastructure and its own security division.

Internet users who would like to set up Quad9 as the DNS provider on a device can do so by using the IP addresses 9.9.9.9,  149.112.112.112, and 2620:FE::FE. These versions of the DNS service include protection against malware and DNSSEC validation. Users who prefer to use just the DNS service without add-ons need to use the IP addresses 9.9.9.10, 149.112.112.10 and 2620:fe::10 respectively.

Lastly, a variant that is secured with ECS is also available by using the IP addresses 9.9.9.11, 149.112.112.11, and 2620:fe::11.

Quad9 does support DNS-over-HTTPS, a feature that encrypts DNS traffic to improve protection further.

Setup guides for all options are available on this site.

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