It is the DNS service from Hagezi, who is known for his blocklists. It is privacy friendly, GDPR compliant and fast. - At least for EU zone.
Why I think this tool should be added
I think its own disclaimer explains it all.
Disclaimer / Privacy Policy (EU Compliance)
HaGeZi DNS is a non-commercial, publicly accessible DNS resolver service operated privately for the public benefit in the EU.
All servers are operated from data centers in the EU and fall under EU data protection laws, including EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). User DNS traffic never leaves EU jurisdiction, and only encrypted protocols are offered to maximize privacy.
No personal data (such as user names, IP resolution logs, or query specifics linked to individuals) is collected, persisted, or shared with any third party. For operational integrity, temporary and anonymized query statistics are maintained for a maximum of one hour exclusively in memory, not on permanent storage. IP addresses are only ever processed for technical features such as query rate limiting and are not bindable to resolution data.
Error logs contain only metadata about DNS failures (domain, timestamp, error type, no client data).
No client data is ever sold or shared. All technical and policy guidelines align with the best practices of leading EU projects.
Service and server security are proactively maintained; software is kept up-to-date.
This is a best-effort, volunteer-provided service with no warranty, availability, or liability for interruptions or malfunctions. It is intended for private, lawful use only. Misuse, automated abuse, or attempts to circumvent restrictions may result in access being blocked.
This service is not affiliated with any commercial provider, government body, or the DNS4EU consortium.
Use of the service constitutes acceptance of these terms.
Iām far from an āAdGuard Stanā, but I do think it is worth mentioning to your concerns that AdGuard has a pretty long history now of offering privacy-related products without issues.
The employees thing feels a bit unfair. How do we know that other privacy-related firms do not have employees on the ground within countries with similar red flags as Russia (obviously) does? I trust Proton with my email and VPN, but they could have employees in nations I donāt personally trust. Same for Bitwarden, Brave, Firefox, etc.
I do wish AdGuard ping times were better, but I havenāt bothered to switch mostly due to the flexibility they offer compared to NextDNS or similar. Being able to import your own blocklist and having access to then suite of Hagezi lists is what keeps me subscribed.
One place I find Adguard to be atrociously bad is in clearly and concisely communicating what services they offer and how they differ. They have 3 different DNS products that I am aware of (2 are hosted services, 1 is self-hosted).
From simplest to most complex there is:
Adguard āpublicā DNS ā This is simple, easy to use, offers only basic options (very similar to Mullvad DNS if you are familiar with that). Free to use and no limit on queries per month.
Adguard āprivateā DNS ā This is more feature rich, and personalized, (very similar to NextDNS, but more actively maintained), queries per month are limited unless you pay for a paid plan.
Adguard Homeā self-hosted solution, can be used for just DNS filtering or in more advanced configurations I believe it can be used for local DNS lookups or caching.
I believe @Footnote5444 is likely referring to the middle option (Adguard āprivateā DNS) which has itās own domain https://adguard-dns.io/ which does include the ability to add custom lists, or add your own custom rules. Here is dashboard where youād add custom lists:
I donāt have any experience with it. Iām using NextDNS at the moment. How do you add your own list? Do you upload them or do you select from a list? If so, NextDNS also lets you add a list, provided itās a list that NextDNS supports.
What you are describing is different from what AdGuard Private DNS now offers. NextDNS and AdGuard Private DNS allow you to add specific filter lists from a selection they decide to offer. I will note that NextDNS has not updated their list offerings in years and many of the options are no longer supported or updated. Not a huge deal, Hageziās lists are still offered and all 99% of people need.
AdGuard also offers that, but they now allow you to import up-to 1000 custom rules via blocklists not currently offered in their default list offerings.
For example, Hagezi offers a social media blocklist. That is not offered as an option in either NextDNS or AdGuard DNS, but you can import it to your account/sever.
AdGuard DNS also offers more Hagezi options. For example, they offer his TIF, DoH Bypass, URL Shortner lists, etc.
NextDNS is a fine service, I also use it for family members, but I do wish they would spend some time offering users more Hagezi options rather than being asked to rely on their internalized lists.
