How to change DNS Servers on Android and iPhone

 

What is DNS?

A Domain Name System (DNS) is a group of databases that convert hostnames to IP addresses, to put it simply.

Because DNS transforms memorable hostnames like www.google.com into IP addresses like 216.58.217.46, it is frequently referred to as the "phone book" of the internet. When you enter a URL into the address bar of a web browser, this happens in the background.

It would be difficult to navigate the internet without DNS (and particularly search engines like Google), as we would need to enter the IP address of each website we wanted to visit.

DNS is significant because of this.

The DNS server (or servers) that provide instructions to your phone on how to reach a specific address are present on any device that needs connectivity to the outside world (also known as the Wide Area Network, or WAN). Most of the time, the addresses are connected to the wireless network you use or the carrier of your device.

When converting domain names to IP addresses, DNS services offered by your carrier or Wi-Fi network might not always be the fastest. Worse case scenario: they might not be safe. The carrier DNS of an unrooted smartphone cannot be altered, though. When logged in to a wireless network, however, it is possible to manually modify the DNS addresses.

Why you should change the DNS Server?

Your phone first establishes a connection with a DNS server when you type a "friendly" URL into the address bar of your browser (for instance, google.com). With the IP address of the website, which is often a string of digits, in place of the friendly name you entered, this functions something like an online phone directory.

This connection is by default not encrypted. As a result, man-in-the-middle attacks, in which hackers pose as Wi-Fi hotspots, are possible against you. In the event that you connect to one by accident, it may redirect your DNS requests to dangerous websites where it may compromise your phone or deceive you into disclosing sensitive information.

Because of this, the market produced products to protect communication between your device and the DNS server. There are two of these that encrypt communication between your phone and the DNS server: DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over TLS (DoT). Without a private key, which hackers shouldn't have, encrypted data is unintelligible.

You are vulnerable to these kinds of assaults because many ISPs and wireless carriers don't use these security measures. The fact that ISPs frequently sell your DNS logs to advertising as a result of the expense of good security is a major factor in this.

NOTE : Better reliability and faster internet browsing can be obtained by switching to a custom DNS server. Your choice of DNS server will affect all of this. If you wish to move to a free public DNS server, these are some of your best options:

Search 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in Google

Cloudflare addresses: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1

OpenDNS addresses 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

How to change the DNS Server on an Android Phone ?

Depending on the Android version that is installed on your phone, there are several procedures for changing the DNS server. A system-wide DNS option that applies to all networks can be set up on Android 9 and later. On the other hand, you will need to modify the DNS server for each network separately if your phone is running Android 8.1 or an earlier version of the operating system. See how it works.

On Android versions 9 and up, changing the DNS server

On smartphones running Android 9 and higher, changing the DNS server settings is quite straightforward. Here's what you can do to get started.

Step 1: open the Settings app on your phone and select Connections from the menu.

Step 2: Tap on More connection settings, and then from the list that appears, choose Private DNS.

Step 3: Choose "Private DNS provider hostname" and enter a TLS hostname in the box that appears. Enter dns.google in the text field to use Google's public DNS servers. Alternatively, you can enter 1.1.1.1.cloudflare-dns.com in the text box to use Cloudflare's DNS servers.

Finally, click Save.

Android 8.1 and Previous Versions: Changing the DNS Server

On older Android devices, use the procedures following to modify the DNS server.

Step 1: open the Settings app and select Wi-Fi on your phone

Step 2: Select Modify network by long pressing on your Wi-Fi network.

Step 3: To make it larger, tap on Advanced options. After that, choose Static from the drop-down selection under IP settings.

Step 4: The gateway of the Wi-Fi network and your phone's IP address should both be automatically obtained by your phone from the DHCP server. Fill out the DNS 1 and DNS 2 slots with your primary and backup DNS servers, respectively. Enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in the text fields if you want to use Google's public DNS servers.

Click Save to finish.

NOTE : To change the DNS server for every network separately, you must follow the procedures above again. This does let you use several DNS servers for various networks, though.

How to change the DNS Servers on an iPhone ?

It is also not difficult to change the DNS server on iOS. For any Wi-Fi network on your iPhone or iPad, you can use the following methods to modify the DNS server.

Step 1: Navigate to Wi-Fi by opening the Settings app on your iPhone. Your Wi-Fi network's details icon is next to it. Tap on it.

Step 2: To configure DNS, scroll down to DNS and touch it. From the screen that follows, choose Manual.

Step 3: You can remove the pre-filled DNS servers entries by tapping the minus sign.

Step 4: Enter the desired DNS server address by tapping Add Server. Enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in the text box if you want to use the public DNS servers run by Google.

Next, select Save by tapping on the top-right button.

You may set up DNS servers in a similar way for other Wi-Fi networks. Repeat the previous steps and set DNS to Automatic at any time to return to the default DNS servers.

Ready to switch?

The native methods are simple to use, so we strongly advise sticking with them.

On the Play Store or the App Store, you can also locate specialized third-party applications that will assist you in fast switching DNS servers.

We hope you liked and the information this article is helpful to you