NextDNS

Infrastructure

dns service

SHOW HN2025

537points
199comments
#58of 3,837 in 2025
Top 2%of 2025 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

16 positive, 27 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 27 critical, out of 73 comments about the project. Thread score -0.07.

Execution: 1 for, 18 againstIdea: 6 for, 5 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 2 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Privacy-protective idea worth doing

    From 2 comments
    • It may not be effective in the long term, but I think it's very much worth doing. The privacy nightmare of uploading government docs is appalling and should be resisted by all…
      freedomben on HN
    • Thank you for doing this! You are helping spread freedom. If everyone were to create more tools like this, it would shape the future to our liking.
      Ms-J on HN
  • Long-time users value the service

    From 2 comments
    • Easily one of the best $20 I spend a year. Makes iOS so much more usable and I really love supporting the vision of the developers from NextDNS
      syntaxing on HN
    • I don't have a strong opinion here, but I did want to say thank you for your service! I was previously running a pi-hole but switched my family and my household to NextDNS. Great…
      luxurytent on HN

Objections

  • Proxying traffic raises privacy and trust concerns

    From 1 comment
    • This sounds like a company using DNS to direct _other_ peoples' web traffic through _their_ proxies. Cloudflare started this way. That's why signing up for Cloudlfare requires…
      1vuio0pswjnm7 on HN
  • May be illegal in the UK to promote circumvention

    From 1 comment
    • As a remark, not a criticism, such a deliberate promotion is probably illegal in the UK market, > "But Ofcom says platforms required to introduce "highly effective" methods to…
      perihelions on HN
  • Product seems abandoned with poor support and outdated blocklists

    From 3 comments
    • Do not promote or use NextDNS, it's essentially abandoned. You will not get any support from the developer when something breaks, and it will break. I tried for a year to contact…
      bunnyfoofoo on HN
    • Hey @nextdns team. I'm a long time customer of NextDNS. I've been using your service for a few years now, but it seems a large amount of your primarily offered services &…
      pogue on HN
    • Are you guys still active? I don’t remember how many of my questions went unanswered in the help forums, later switched to self hosted adguard.
      import on HN

Requests

  • Explain how the DNS trick works

    From 3 comments
    • How does this "DNS trick" work? That to me is a much more interesting detail.
      rany_ on HN
    • I love NextDNS. Can you explain what exactly the DNS tricks are and where they do/don’t work?
      cedws on HN
    • I am a user of nextdns and okay, this is really neato team! I find this really interesting. If I may ask, what are the dns tricks, is there a blog post about what you added, I am…
      Imustaskforhelp on HN
  • Offer redirect feature for other domains

    From 1 comment
    • If you are already building a proxy network to handle this can you please implement redirects? I would love to redirect x.com to xcancel.com by just setting my DNS. I would pay…
      blissofbeing on HN

Questions

  • Where is the setting configured

    From 1 comment
    • Where is the setting configured? I just looked through my admin page and didn't see any switch for it
      paradox460 on HN
  • Does this create liability for sites required to check ID

    From 1 comment
    • Does this create any new liability for the sites that are legally required to check ID?
      Telemakhos on HN

Alternatives named

  • VPNs

    From 2 comments
    • I'm a parent, and I try to keep my kids from the Internet in general, but adult parts in particular. VPN's are great for this. Just install the VPN, have it block access to adult…
      pyuser583 on HN
    • "Under no circumstances should you use Mullvad VPN (https://mullvad.net/en), available for 5Eur/mo - also payable in Bitcoin, to avoid our age verification checks!"
      rendaw on HN
  • AdGuard self-hosted

    From 1 comment
    • Are you guys still active? I don’t remember how many of my questions went unanswered in the help forums, later switched to self hosted adguard.
      import on HN
  • Pi-hole

    From 1 comment
    • I don't have a strong opinion here, but I did want to say thank you for your service! I was previously running a pi-hole but switched my family and my household to NextDNS. Great…
      luxurytent on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

Add a badge to your READMEShown on HackerShow
[![Shown on HackerShow](https://hackershow.org/badge.svg)](https://hackershow.org/show/44931824)