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If luck gave you a ISP offering a good DNS service there is still a matter of privacy and escaping surveillance. Laws ordering ISP to keep logs of their custom

If luck gave you a ISP offering a good DNS service there is still a matter of privacy and escaping surveillance. Laws ordering ISP to keep logs of their customer activity are becoming increasingly common around the world. By using a different DNS server your ISP DNS server has no logs to show for your DNS activity. It is good privacy practice to split the data about your internet activities across different providers to make it more difficult to track you. For example if you use google services for web search, then you should not use google for your email (ideally your should host your own email). But the sad state of reality is that ISP DNS are often poor, whether it is hijacking DNS for profit or blocking domains following judge's orders or local laws.

Spittie 12y ago
Your ISP can already easily track what you browse/requests, it's not like the DNS logs give them more information (and unless you use DNSCrypt or similar, they can just see the DNS traffic anyway). On the contrary, by using a different DNS server you're giving your data both to your ISP (you have to) and a 3rd party.
- melville_X 12y ago
  That's why VPNs exist. A VPN without an external DNS service is pretty pointless if you're concerned about ISP snooping.
  - Spittie 12y ago
    Well, then if all the DNS traffic is proxyed through a VPN your ISP can't know who made that query, making it pretty much useless. And if you're worrying about DNS leaks, your ISP is still able to read that traffic even when using a different DNS provider (assuming no DNSCrypt or similar). 3rd party DNS servers can be useful, I just don't see any additional value to your privacy when not coupled with DNSCrypt/DNSCurve.
mike-cardwell 12y ago
"It is good privacy practice to split the data about your internet activities across different providers" Not really. Now both your ISP and your DNS provider know what sites you're visiting. All you're doing is increasing your attack surface.

Spittie 12y ago

Your ISP can already easily track what you browse/requests, it's not like the DNS logs give them more information (and unless you use DNSCrypt or similar, they can just see the DNS traffic anyway). On the contrary, by using a different DNS server you're giving your data both to your ISP (you have to) and a 3rd party.

melville_X 12y ago
That's why VPNs exist. A VPN without an external DNS service is pretty pointless if you're concerned about ISP snooping.
- Spittie 12y ago
  Well, then if all the DNS traffic is proxyed through a VPN your ISP can't know who made that query, making it pretty much useless. And if you're worrying about DNS leaks, your ISP is still able to read that traffic even when using a different DNS provider (assuming no DNSCrypt or similar). 3rd party DNS servers can be useful, I just don't see any additional value to your privacy when not coupled with DNSCrypt/DNSCurve.

mike-cardwell 12y ago

"It is good privacy practice to split the data about your internet activities across different providers" Not really. Now both your ISP and your DNS provider know what sites you're visiting. All you're doing is increasing your attack surface.