As more and more people realize the dangers of the internet with all the prying eyes around, VPNs or Virtual Private Networks have grown in popularity as many encrypt and hide their browsing habits.
So companies, big and small, started offering VPN services in conjunction with other products. But these can often lead to problems and annoyances. Recently, Brave stopped forcing installation of VPN services on Windows PCs when you wanted to install only the browser app. The fix was released nearly six months after the problem was flagged.
So now there are reports of Google VPN services messing with Windows Domain Name Service (DNS) settings.
Google added a VPN service to its subscription cloud Google One in 2020. A few years later, in November 2022, it was released on Windows and Mac as well.
The problem seems to be twofold. First, Google One VPN enforces its own DNS servers over the ones you use in Windows, and second, it doesn't revert changes it made to Windows DNS settings, even if you disable the service.
The bug was spotted by GitHub user Mr-McMuffin, who opened it a topic that describes the problem:
This VPN BREAKS DNS functionality in windows 11, it locks the system DNS to google DNS servers under the network settings.
Settings -> Network & Internet -> Ethernet
Leave this open, and set on Automatic DHCP.
Connect to Google VPN, it will change your DNS setting to manual google DNS servers.
Disconnect, and keep an eye on the settings window we left open, it will stay stuck to the google DNS settings, not the automatic DHCP, breaking ANY dns functionality of your computer.
Mr-McMuffin reports that the problem occurs on Windows 11, but there are others reporting that the same occurs on Windows 10 as well.
A Google engineer, Ryan Lothian, responded to the thread in January (the theme opened November 2023) thanking the user who reported the problem. Lothian states:
Hi guys, thanks for reporting this behavior.
For the protection of user privacy, Google One VPN intentionally configures DNS to use Google's DNS servers. This prevents a malicious DNS server (which can be set by DHCP) from compromising your privacy. Visit the address https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy to learn about limited logging performed by Google DNS.
We think this is a good default for most users. However, we recognize that some users may want to have their own DNS or reset DNS when the VPN disconnects. We will consider adding this in a future version of the app.
Although Google believes it's a "good default for most users" to use the company's DNS servers, commenters on the GitHub thread are expressing their disapproval.
