Advice Request CleanBrowsing DNS vs NextDNS vs ControlD DNS

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CleanBrowsing DNS vs NextDNS vs ControlD DNS

  • CleanBrowsing DNS

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • NextDNS

    Votes: 9 45.0%
  • ControlD DNS

    Votes: 2 10.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 9 45.0%

  • Total voters
    20

SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
So really for a bog standard home router config, NextDNS isn't the answer.

Ideally needs to be something that's active. So either Quad9 or Cleanbrowsing
Correct I think, although I don't know what 'bog' means. And I don't know how good CleanBrowsing is practically. Theoretically they should be very good. But I don't have any specific idea how it performs in reality. Actually that's the reason I started this thread. :p
 
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blackice

Level 38
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Apr 1, 2019
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I looked a lot more into the NextDNS tests that have been done. There aren’t many tests for this and they are biased based on where the urls are pulled from. But based on the Twitter post that showed one bad result their protection has improved by his tests recently. Quad9 and Cloudflare trailing. Clean browsing has always had a really good malware blocking list, some people complain about false positives but I never encountered one when we used it on our router.

Scroll through this guys twitter and you’ll see all his url tests:

 

M4RT1NE2

Level 14
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Mar 19, 2022
650
I would like to ask a question about NextDNS I've had it for a few days. Does post-installation configuration require additional settings? Is what the default is enough?
 
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SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
I looked a lot more into the NextDNS tests that have been done. There aren’t many tests for this and they are biased based on where the urls are pulled from. But based on the Twitter post that showed one bad result their protection has improved by his tests recently. Quad9 and Cloudflare trailing. Clean browsing has always had a really good malware blocking list, some people complain about false positives but I never encountered one when we used it on our router.

Scroll through this guys twitter and you’ll see all his url tests:

Although, the test is done on domains from just one source, urlhaus.abuse.ch.
Which is very common to be used by DNS filtering services since it is a free public list. It is a reliable source of course. But the really good DNS services actually don't trust it entirely and whitelist the false positives from it.
 

blackice

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Apr 1, 2019
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Although, the test is done on domains from just one source, urlhaus.abuse.ch.
Which is very common to be used by DNS filtering services since it is a free public list. It is a reliable source of course. But the really good DNS services actually don't trust it entirely and whitelist the false positives from it.
True, but for the average home user who has an extension in their browser already then urlhaus plus google safe browsing pretty much covers their concern. For a business/corporate climate you’d have better solutions for sure.
 

SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
True, but for the average home user who has an extension in their browser already then urlhaus plus google safe browsing pretty much covers their concern. For a business/corporate climate you’d have better solutions for sure.
Yes sure. But after having tools like the browser extensions, AV etc you don't actually need to pay for services like NextDns. You can use any of the free ones.
 
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blackice

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Apr 1, 2019
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Yes sure. But after having tools like the browser extensions, AV etc you don't actually need to pay for services like NextDns. You can use any of the free ones.
I think at that point things like parental controls and dns based ad and tracker blocking to save on loading resources is the benefit of services like NextDNS. Personally I'm testing out NextDNS for our network today because it got me curious chatting about it. Most likely I'll go back to just using it on my phone and using my ISP or Quad9 for our home.
 

superleeds27

Level 6
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Apr 5, 2017
277
I think at that point things like parental controls and dns based ad and tracker blocking to save on loading resources is the benefit of services like NextDNS. Personally I'm testing out NextDNS for our network today because it got me curious chatting about it. Most likely I'll go back to just using it on my phone and using my ISP or Quad9 for our home.
What makes you choose Quad9 over cleanbrowsing? Just out of interest!
 
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Trooper

Level 16
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Aug 28, 2015
772
Depends on what you need. If you want ad-blocking on DNS level then you need to add filters in the privacy tab for example.

Exactly right. That is why I use NextDNS at home. I have Quad9 a spin since yesterday on my home pc. Just as the last time I used, things seem to render slower. I did not do any deep dives or benchmarks but things seemed to be slower rendering pages. Not sure if that is due to NextDNS blocking ads, and tracking at a DNS level or not. However NextDNS has servers closer to my home than Quad9 does so there is that.
 

SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
I think at that point things like parental controls and dns based ad and tracker blocking to save on loading resources is the benefit of services like NextDNS. Personally I'm testing out NextDNS for our network today because it got me curious chatting about it. Most likely I'll go back to just using it on my phone and using my ISP or Quad9 for our home.
Parental control is something you would benefit from NextDns. Although, ads and trackers blocking is available in other free dns services also. ControlD also has adult content blocking in its free service, along with ad blocking. Although it doesn't probably enforce safe search on search engines. Matter of fact, CleanBrowsing and even Cloudflare has adult content blocking, but they both don't have ad blocking.
 

SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
Exactly right. That is why I use NextDNS at home. I have Quad9 a spin since yesterday on my home pc. Just as the last time I used, things seem to render slower. I did not do any deep dives or benchmarks but things seemed to be slower rendering pages. Not sure if that is due to NextDNS blocking ads, and tracking at a DNS level or not. However NextDNS has servers closer to my home than Quad9 does so there is that.
Dns with ad blocking actually makes that difference. It loads much less data by filtering out the useless ads and trackers. Which results in pages loading faster and also less data being used altogether. But as I said earlier that there are free services that can do that.
 

blackice

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Apr 1, 2019
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Exactly right. That is why I use NextDNS at home. I have Quad9 a spin since yesterday on my home pc. Just as the last time I used, things seem to render slower. I did not do any deep dives or benchmarks but things seemed to be slower rendering pages. Not sure if that is due to NextDNS blocking ads, and tracking at a DNS level or not. However NextDNS has servers closer to my home than Quad9 does so there is that.
Probably because you aren’t being routed to the closest CDNs with Quad9. NextDNS uses an anonymous ECS system so you have a better chance of closer CDNs if the Network you’re connecting to supports it.
 

SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
Performance. Same reason I go back to my ISP. I have filtering on all the browsers and the router, so filtering is secondary. Performance is key for streaming and other activities.
Wow. In your location, you get better speeds with Quad9 than with CleanBrowsing?
 
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Kongo

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Feb 25, 2017
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Dns with ad blocking actually makes that difference. It loads much less data by filtering out the useless ads and trackers. Which results in pages loading faster and also less data being used altogether. But as I said earlier that there are free services that can do that.
Don't think that the blocking of ads and trackers make a big difference in this case. NextDNS still feels quite a bit faster than Quad9 in my location even with external filters disabled. Not sure where the server locations of Quad9 are, but NextDNS has one pretty near to my location.
 

SohanRay

Level 5
Thread author
Mar 19, 2022
246
Don't think that the blocking of ads and trackers make a big difference in this case. NextDNS still feels quite a bit faster than Quad9 in my location even with external filters disabled. Not sure where the server locations of Quad9 are, but NextDNS has one pretty near to my location.
Ohh no I meant blocking ads and trackers make a difference that you can notice while browsing. But yeah NextDns is faster than Quad9, of course. Anyone can see that in Dnsperf.com.
 
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Trooper

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Aug 28, 2015
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Don't think that the blocking of ads and trackers make a big difference in this case. NextDNS still feels quite a bit faster than Quad9 in my location even with external filters disabled. Not sure where the server locations of Quad9 are, but NextDNS has one pretty near to my location.

Was about to chime in with the same. That can help but is not a be all end all. Quad9 ping is higher for me than NextDNS as well. Not sure how anyone could say performance is better on Quad9 than NextDNS. That is another reason why I go with NextDNS for performance and speed.
 

superleeds27

Level 6
Verified
Apr 5, 2017
277
Was about to chime in with the same. That can help but is not a be all end all. Quad9 ping is higher for me than NextDNS as well. Not sure how anyone could say performance is better on Quad9 than NextDNS. That is another reason why I go with NextDNS for performance and speed.
Has anyone queried it with Quad9 as to why things are slower?
 

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