NextDNS is a service that offers customizable DNS resolvers which can act as network monitoring tools and/or a pseudo firewall. Its features include privacy and security related blocklists, parental control via blocking 18+ websites and restricting internet access during certain periods of time, in depth analytics and real time logs (not stored locally unfortunately, but completely optional and has options on where you choose to store your data), and much more.
Terms of Service, Privacy Policy
The service requires an account to use.
Both AnonAddy and SimpleLogin work. Yes.
As it's intended to be a network monitoring tool this is to be expected. Optional, but opt out.
Useful for monitoring which device is connecting to what. Disable it if it's for personal use
In this case it only derives the country from the IP it logs. It's a lot milder compared to the lengths some entities will go.
I mean it does monitor your DNS queries. I doubt anyone's actively listening on them though.
Uses Paypal, Stripe, BitPay, and SendGrid for transactional purposes (i.e. purchasing a subscription). Also uses AWS and Google fonts for their website. They apparently do have ways of protecting your identity from the services they need to function.
Unfortunately the analytics are mandatory.
While there's technically no off switch for the analytics, you can just disable logs which gives them no data to analyze. The logs are opt out though.
Apparently they discard all request and response data once the DNS query is complete. Coolio.
While the CLI client is completely open source, the applications for all platforms are not. I just don't use the apps because the web interface is enough.
They do not publish the source code for all their apps on all platforms. Again just use your browser and set it up from there.
Supposedly it's 100% funded, owned, and controlled by its founders.
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Analysis: Managing to get the score I expected, NextDNS scores high in the SPT. It's way ahead of most of the services I've rated so far and is a solid tool in taking back your privacy. While it does have its fair share of cons, I believe the pros outweigh them enough for it to be considered privacy centric. Do note that free accounts only get 200,000 queries before the features get temporarily disabled so I'd only suggest paying for the subscription if you intend to use it on multiple devices or have many people using it. While a local firewall can pretty much fulfill NextDNS' function, they tend to take time to set up and may not be available for all operating systems without compromise (Android requires root for a proper firewall, which reduces its security). So if you want a pseudo firewall on your unrooted mobile device or if you're too lazy to search around for various blocklists then you can use NextDNS if you want to.