The non-profit company Domain Name System (DNS), Quad9 announced today the transfer of its headquarters from California to Switzerland.
Quad9 is a non-commercial DNS provider that does not collect personal data and of course does not sell it. It is supported by donations and its only product is the DNS service.
DNS services are used to "translate" domain names into IP addresses that computers use to communicate. DNS providers are critical to privacy because they know every website that users access. Some use this information for purposes marketing and sell them to the highest bidder.
The default DNS provider is usually the Internet Service Provider, but it is often not the fastest or most secure.
For anyone interested DNS benchmarking tools are available that can help you find the best provider, at least in terms of speed.
What these tools do not do is give users other information, such as about a service's privacy policy.
Quad9 therefore made the deliberate decision to transfer its services to Switzerland (Swiss jurisdiction) and therefore to Swiss privacy laws. The move to Switzerland was designed to strengthen Quad9's commitment to keeping its users' data private and secure.
The company says that all of its users will benefit from this move, as the "Swiss Data Protection Act does not contain any restrictions on the nationality or residence of individuals whose personal rights are protected by law." In other words: all Quad9 users have the same legal status protection with Swiss citizens if they use the service.
If you want to set the DNS you use with those of Quad9 you can have the IP addresses 9.9.9.9, 149.112.112.112 and 2620: FE :: FE. These addresses offer malware protection and DNSSEC authentication.
Users who prefer to use only the DNS service without add-ons should use the IP addresses 9.9.9.10, 149.112.112.10 and 2620: fe :: 10 respectively.
Finally, a parchange protected with ECS is also available using IP addresses 9.9.9.11, 149.112.112.11, and 2620:fe::11.
Quad9 supports DNS-over-HTTPS, a feature that encrypts DNS traffic to further enhance protection.
The installation guides for all the above options are availablei in official webpage.