The European public DNS that makes your Internet safer
103 comments
·June 13, 2025em-bee
tomhow
Thanks! Full details of this and others:
How much EU is in DNS4EU? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44255116 - June 2025 (108 comments)
DNS4EU, an EU-based DNS resolution service - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44254610 - June 2025 (50 comments)
DNS4EU for Public Is Available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44190071 - June 2025 (78 comments)
aleph_minus_one
Does this DNS server block (censor) the domains of the CUII list as many German internet providers do?
> https://cuiiliste.de/domains
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearingstelle_Urheberrecht_im...
(both are German websites, but they should be easily understandable for everybody)
9dev
I love that list. It’s like a convenient lookup directory when you need to pirate or stream something, freely accessible, sponsored for by the government and the entertainment industry!
aleph_minus_one
> sponsored for by the government and the entertainment industry
This list rather did rather become known because of a leak. Here is a German article about this topic: https://netzpolitik.org/2024/cuii-liste-diese-websites-sperr...
TechDebtDevin
lmao, I was just going to say. This is going to do the opposite of what it intends for me.
mrtksn
NO censorship as far as I can tell, all websites I tried worked. Beyond that, Russian websites are also fine.
Also, I don't expect to have EU wide bans anytime soon because each country is into doing its thing in this regard. When Germany, Italy etc. are going trigger happy for piracy Eastern EU and the Nordics used to be or maybe continue to be the providers of that.
lode
Doesn't look like it, picking a random domain from this list gives the same result as from 1.1.1.1:
dig bs.to @1.1.1.1
;; ANSWER SECTION:
bs.to. 164 IN A 190.115.31.20
dig bs.to @193.110.81.0
;; ANSWER SECTION:
bs.to. 300 IN A 190.115.31.20aleph_minus_one
Test in particular the very newest, and the still used domains from the Wikipedia list such as
* nox.to
* getrockmusic.net
* libgen.gs
* sci-hub.st
tom1337
Also resolves correctly - they do not seem to be doing censoring right now.
rdsubhas
Their network map promiscuously shows ZERO servers in Germany. They have in every other major EU country. I guess they have it this way to not follow this.
mrweasel
It shows two datacenter locations in Germany, Digital Realty and Interxion, both in Frankfurt.
They are also operating in Denmark, which have laws similar to those of Germany. One way they could get around the issue is perhaps by not actually being an ISP. I'm not a 100% sure, but I believe that at least in Denmark it's the job of the ISPs to block you from accessing certain sites. DNS blocking has been deemed sufficient. The providers of public DNS servers aren't ISPs so it's not their job to block the traffic. I also don't belive that e.g. Googles 8.8.8.8 is censured in the EU.
auguzanellato
> I also don't belive that e.g. Googles 8.8.8.8 is censured in the EU.
They were recently forced by Italy’s AGCOM to censor domains used for piracy, specifically they had to sign up to the PiracyShield thing that was also discussed here some time ago.
nucleardog
CIRA in Canada also provides a public DNS server. (CIRA is the non-profit administrator of the .ca TLD.)
They provide variants for unfiltered DNS, blocking malware/phishing, and malware/phishing + pornography.
All variants are provided over IPv4, IPv6, DoH, and DoT.
https://www.cira.ca/en/canadian-shield/configure/summary-cir...
yegor
Try this instead, also based in Canada: https://controld.com/free-dns (self-promotion)
torgeros
They have not posted anything on social media in a long time and there was some downtime a few months ago. I would really like to use this primarily, but it is really a problem when your DNS suddenly becomes unavailable without any note from the devs ^^
jaoane
That’s why your computer allows you to set two DNS servers.
jauco
Some context that might be overlooked by the non-eu visitors: the eu is passing a bunch of laws that forces/requires larger corporations and so called “critical entities” to invest in resilience. Amongst which of course also cyber resilience. This is a broad area, from security hardening to cataclysm preparation. The relevant eu guidelines are NIS2 and CER.
The laws don’t tell the entities what they should prepare for. Rather, they state that the entities must execute a proper risk assessment and prepare accordingly (obviously this is the rough summary. The actual legislations are a bit better worded than a 9pm forum post)
And given what’s going on in the world + the phrasing of the legislations, using eu based services is becoming a lot more attractive to these companies.
Which means that being a eu based company whose offer is “whatever US company X does, but a bit less mature atm, we’re working on it!” has gone from a pointless strategy to one that might just work.
Edit: BTW that last paragraph is not meant to imply that dns0 isn’t mature. I don’t know them. Just wanted to put in words the general vibe I’m picking up.
Eduard
> A fast, distributed and resilient DNS infrastructure that's 100% European.
> dns0.eu is a French non‑profit organization founded in 2022 by Romain Cointepas and Olivier Poitrey — co-founders of NextDNS.
-> https://help.nextdns.io/t/y4hmv0n/who-is-behind-nextdns
> Who is behind NextDNS?
> NextDNS was founded in May 2019 in Delaware, USA by two French founders Romain Cointepas and Olivier Poitrey. Olivier has been working on Internet infrastructures for the last 20 years. In 2005, he founded Dailymotion, the largest video sharing service after Youtube and the most popular European website in the world at the time. He is currently Director of Engineering at Netflix, working on Open Connect, Netflix's home CDN also known as the CDN moving about 30% of the total US Internet traffic. Romain and Olivier closely worked for years at Dailymotion on many different projects. Romain ended up leading the mobile & TV department.
Brain gymnastics at work.
blurrybird
This is made and maintained by the same guy who made NextDNS, a Netflix CDN expert.
They know how to make low latency distributed network applications, but it isn't their day job and the pace of development of both Next and this shows it.
nyarlathotep_
I've been paying for NextDNS for at least 4 years now and use their DoH clients on mobile, and its the upstream for AdGuard at home + cloudflared for laptops on the go. It's a great service.
Xelbair
The only way my internet can be safer if i get a DNS that's fully outside of any government control(including soft power over private providers).
martin_a
Similar to the service that has been up here a few times in the last days: https://www.joindns4.eu/
rikafurude21
Doesnt seem to be directly related to the EU, but something I would consider if I had kids with personal devices.
rdsubhas
Living in Germany, one of the things about DNS-level adblocking is: It SILENTLY obstructs a lot of the payback, reward and coupon programs.
For example, the biggest country-wide payback program is payback.de, and their most of their coupon multiplier links here – https://www.payback.de/coupons/info – will be clickable, but silently not work after you purchase.
Adblocking is good, but I prefer when it's controlled and I can just open an incognito window or disable it temporarily when I need them, for whatever reason.
Eduard
> For example, the biggest country-wide payback program is payback.de, and their most of their coupon multiplier links here – https://www.payback.de/coupons/info – will be clickable, but silently not work after you purchase.
I don't understand this claim. Payback coupons have to be activated before purchase, so even if somehow that link wouldn't work anymore after a purchase it'd be too late anyway to have the coupon applied.
Can you elaborate or provide links for more information?
cyberbolt23
Then use a browser adblocker that you can disable when needed.
mtremsal
This is neat. I wonder what the delta is between this and NextDNS (who funds/powers the non-profit). I imagine NextDNS blocks a superset of the baseline of dangerous domains blocked by dns0.eu? Is the main addition primarily advertising and analytics related?
edit: another key addition by NextDNS is a global infra footprint, rather than just in the EU. Oh it looks like there’s no anycast with the non-profit as well? And you have to pick your local resolver. I guess that makes sense because the main value prop of NextDNS (to me) is when I’m traveling and a local pi-hole won’t suffice.
jamiedumont
I thought the two sounded similar, then I saw at the bottom they both have come from the same two founders. Nice to have a straightforward alternative to NextDNS to recommend to relatives.
related: dns4eu https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44255116