WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.680 Thanks for watching Techquickie. Click the subscribe button, then enable notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos. 00:00:06.840 --> 00:00:12.000 So I would argue that it's healthy to be a little concerned about the people who follow you around online, 00:00:12.360 --> 00:00:19.080 be it the government, unscrupulous advertisers, or maybe your crazy ex who swears she'll never love another man. 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:25.760 But even if you've taken all of the obvious precautions including hiding behind seven proxies, 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:32.160 browsing only in incognito mode, whole drive encryption, and stationing an attack dog outside of your computer room, 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:38.480 unfortunately, there might still be an insidious hole in your defenses that could expose a fair amount about you. 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:40.980 I'm talking about DNS leaks. 00:00:40.980 --> 00:00:45.760 And if you don't know what the DNS is, you can check out our other video right up here on how it works. 00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:51.980 But simply put, it's the system that matches web addresses you enter, like youtube.com, to numerical IP 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:55.440 addresses so that your web browser will know which site to bring up. 00:00:55.440 --> 00:00:55.720 And 00:00:55.720 --> 00:01:03.840 now typically, whenever you try to visit a new website, your computer will ask a DNS server maintained by your ISP for its IP address. 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:10.140 Now this means that your ISP knows which sites you're visiting, which normally wouldn't be an issue, 00:01:10.220 --> 00:01:14.420 but if you're doing something sensitive, you may not want your ISP to have this information, 00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:20.360 especially if they're logging it indefinitely or, much worse, selling it to third parties. 00:01:20.360 --> 00:01:23.520 Oh, but come on John, that's amateur hour stuff. 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:25.400 I use a VPN that I pay 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.120 actual money for, so I'm totally safe, right? 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:30.140 Well, maybe not. 00:01:30.140 --> 00:01:35.900 Depending on how your VPN is configured, it might be using a secure encrypted tunnel to connect you with the websites themselves, 00:01:36.580 --> 00:01:43.160 but the DNS request to help you navigate to those sites might still be going to your ISP's DNS server. 00:01:43.730 --> 00:01:51.850 Now this is because some operating systems, and Windows is notorious for this, will rely on whatever DNS server it is saved as the 00:01:51.950 --> 00:01:55.110 default. So if this is your ISP's, it might completely 00:01:55.110 --> 00:02:00.650 ignore the fact you have a VPN running and send all of your browsing requests to your ISP anyway. 00:02:00.990 --> 00:02:06.050 Now, they won't see exactly what pages you're visiting or the contents of a message you type, 00:02:06.270 --> 00:02:12.290 but they can build a shockingly robust profile of your online life based on just this information alone. 00:02:12.550 --> 00:02:14.870 So how can you plug these pesky leaks? 00:02:15.230 --> 00:02:21.770 Well, if you are using a VPN you trust, the most straightforward way is to enable its anti-DNS leak feature, 00:02:21.810 --> 00:02:23.930 which will encrypt and route all DNS requests to the ISP. 00:02:23.930 --> 00:02:25.090 So how can you plug these pesky leaks? Well, if you are using a VPN you trust, the most straightforward way is to enable its anti-DNS leak feature, which will encrypt and route all DNS requests to the ISP. 00:02:25.110 --> 00:02:27.270 So how can you plug these pesky leaks? Well, if you are using a VPN you trust, the most straightforward way is to enable its anti-DNS leak feature, which will encrypt and route all DNS requests to the ISP. 00:02:27.490 --> 00:02:33.650 After turning this setting on, you can test it as a site that checks for any remaining leaks to see if it's functioning properly, 00:02:33.650 --> 00:02:35.850 and we'll put a link to one of those sites down in the video description. 00:02:35.850 --> 00:02:42.850 And even if you're not using a VPN, you can still route DNS requests through different servers if you don't trust your ISP. 00:02:42.850 --> 00:02:47.210 There are a number of publicly DNS servers out there that you can find with a little research. 00:02:47.610 --> 00:02:50.730 Two of the more notable ones are run by Google and CloudFlare. 00:02:51.410 --> 00:02:55.090 To set this up just bring up your IPv4 settings under 00:02:55.110 --> 00:02:59.310 Ethernet properties in Windows and enter the IP addresses of the DNS servers 00:02:59.310 --> 00:03:04.230 you'd like to use. Though Windows 8 and 10 users should note that a new feature 00:03:04.230 --> 00:03:11.310 called SMHNR, that's a mouthful, anyway, well it could still route your request 00:03:11.310 --> 00:03:14.850 through your ISP, so we've linked a plugin that can disable it in the video 00:03:14.850 --> 00:03:19.110 description if you're using a VPN. And well-regarded public DNS servers can 00:03:19.110 --> 00:03:23.190 have other benefits. For example, Google claims that their service only keeps 00:03:23.190 --> 00:03:27.810 logs of users' IP addresses for 48 hours before deleting them, provides speed 00:03:27.810 --> 00:03:32.410 improvements in many cases, and encrypts your DNS requests as well. Of course, no 00:03:32.410 --> 00:03:37.410 matter who you use, you're still trusting essentially some rando, just not your ISP. 00:03:37.410 --> 00:03:42.130 To be respectful of your privacy, so read their privacy policies thoroughly. 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