is it safe to change my DNS.what is DNS?

[saba17]

so i had problems with connecting to rockstar games launcher and their website.so i contacted support.about 4-5 days of contacting and providing information they told me to fix this problem i have to  disable antivirus and firewall and then change my DNS.is it safe and what is DNS even?

[minibois]

The internet works with IP addresses. A website is an IP address.

When you type in "Google.com", a DNS server (which is typically set on your router as your ISP) will convert that "Google.com" into an IP address you can visit.

 

There are a ton of different alternative DNS servers (the most popular ones are probably those by Google (8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4) and Cloudfare (1.1.1.1)).

One concern you can have with an alternative DNS, is that you're basically routing all IP address requests (every you website you visit) towards the DNS server of choice, instead of your ISP.

That is something you could oppose to and the most "unsafe" thing about an alternative DNS server potentially.

[saba17]

1 minute ago, minibois said:

The internet works with IP addresses. A website is an IP address.

When you type in "Google.com", a DNS server (which is typically set on your router as your ISP) will convert that "Google.com" into an IP address you can visit.

 

There are a ton of different alternative DNS servers (the most popular ones are probably those by Google (8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4) and Cloudfare (1.1.1.1)).

One concern you can have with an alternative DNS, is that you're basically routing all IP address requests (every you website you visit) towards the DNS server of choice, instead of your ISP.

That is something you could oppose to and the most "unsafe" thing about an alternative DNS server potentially.

so i should not do it

[Oshino Shinobu]

I'd read this for a simple explanation of DNS: https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/dns/what-is-dns/

 

It's safe to change your DNS, as long as you're changing it to trusted DNS servers. For example, Google's Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or CloudFlare's (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1). It's important to only use known and trusted DNS servers as malicious DNS servers can hold DNS records that point common website URLs to malicious servers, which could impersonate the site you meant to visit in a form of phishing attack to steal login credentials. 

 

Disabling your AV and firewall is fine for testing, but I wouldn't leave it like that. You'd want to enable and add exceptions for the application you need rather than outright disabling them.

[saba17]

5 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I'd read this for a simple explanation of DNS: https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/dns/what-is-dns/

 

It's safe to change your DNS, as long as you're changing it to trusted DNS servers. For example, Google's Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or CloudFlare's (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1). It's important to only use known and trusted DNS servers as malicious DNS servers can hold DNS records that point common website URLs to malicious servers, which could impersonate the site you meant to visit in a form of phishing attack to steal login credentials. 

 

Disabling your AV and firewall is fine for testing, but I wouldn't leave it like that. You'd want to enable and add exceptions for the application you need rather than outright disabling them.

so they told me to put this numbers in google. 

• Type 8.8.8.8 into the "Preferred DNS server" text box.
• Type 8.8.4.4 into the "Alternate DNS server" text box.
• and then this
• Type 2001:4860:4860::8888 into the "Preferred DNS server" text box.
• Type 2001:4860:4860::8844 into the "Alternate DNS server" text box. so it is  safe

[minibois]

13 minutes ago, sabapro17 said:

so i should not do it

It's up to you really. I'd only keep it like that for testing, unless you want to use that alternative DNS server.

4 minutes ago, sabapro17 said:

so they told me to put this numbers in google. 

• Type 8.8.8.8 into the "Preferred DNS server" text box.
• Type 8.8.4.4 into the "Alternate DNS server" text box.
• and then this
• Type 2001:4860:4860::8888 into the "Preferred DNS server" text box.
• Type 2001:4860:4860::8844 into the "Alternate DNS server" text box. so it is  safe

These are the IP adresses for Google's DNS server.

The first two numbers are the primary and secondary DNS server in IPv4 format, the third and fourth number are the same in IPv6 format.

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 minutes ago, sabapro17 said:

so they told me to put this numbers in google. 

• Type 8.8.8.8 into the "Preferred DNS server" text box.
• Type 8.8.4.4 into the "Alternate DNS server" text box.
• and then this
• Type 2001:4860:4860::8888 into the "Preferred DNS server" text box.
• Type 2001:4860:4860::8844 into the "Alternate DNS server" text box. so it is  safe

You'd need to do that in your network card's properties. Those are for Google's Public DNS server, which are safe to use. Here's a tutorial for how to change these: 

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using#windows

 

You only need the first two steps. The second two are IPv6 which isn't needed for most people.

[saba17]

3 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

You'd need to do that in your network card's properties. Those are for Google's Public DNS server, which are safe to use. Here's a tutorial for how to change these: 

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using#windows

 

You only need the first two steps. The second two are IPv6 which isn't needed for most people.

ok then i am going to use this.thank you and be safe

[Kelso2835]

Use cloudflares dns 1.1.1.1 its lower latency i have found i think ltt did a video about it called faster internet for free

1 hour ago, sabapro17 said:

ok then i am going to use this.thank you and be safe

 

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Kelso2835 said:

Use cloudflares dns 1.1.1.1 its lower latency i have found i think ltt did a video about it called faster internet for free

 

DNS does not lower latency, it CAN lower the lookup time to resolve a domain to an IP address but that's it. WARP, by cloudflare, is a separate VPN product and doesn't guarantee anything either but can help.

[Donut417]

12 hours ago, sabapro17 said:

DNS.is it safe and what is DNS even?

Yes its safe. Its heavily advised you dont use your ISP's DNS servers. I use the Google DNS servers, but there is OpenDSN and Cloudflare. 

 

All the DNS server does the translates a web address in to the IP address the site uses. The DNS servers I mentioned generally performance faster. 

[Darren]

19 hours ago, Kelso2835 said:

Use cloudflares dns 1.1.1.1 its lower latency i have found i think ltt did a video about it called faster internet for free

 

Not 100% of the time, individuals should test, this kind of advice can mislead people in entire countries into poor performance, e.g. every major free DNS provider is 30-35 ms away from me whereas my ISP is 3.

8 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Its heavily advised you dont use your ISP's DNS servers. I use the Google DNS servers, but there is OpenDSN and Cloudflare.

That's not ohjectively true per my other reply. If you get better performance from another provider than your own ISP, sure, but for myself my ISP will serve me a response in 3ms whereas every major alternative is at least 35.

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, Darren said:

That's not ohjectively true per my other reply. If you get better performance from another provider than your own ISP, sure, but for myself my ISP will serve me a response in 3ms whereas every major alternative is at least 35.

ISP's here in the states are known for manipulating things and doing deep packet inspection. Thats why we dont use our ISP's well ANYTHING. Dont use their DNS servers, dont use their equipment.