Non-profit company Domain Name System (DNS), Quad9 today announced 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 your ISP, but it's often not the fastest or most safes.
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 don't do is give users other information, such as about the Privacy Policy of a service.
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 states that all its users will benefit from this move, as "the Swiss Data Protection Act does not contain any restrictions on the citizenship or residence of persons whose personal rights are protected by law." In other words: all Quad9 users have the same legal protection as 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.
Installation guides for all of the above options are available at official webpage.
