Even though NextDNS continues to be recommended by privacy enthousiasts, there are many ‘red flags’ with this service. Below I tried to make a list as complete as I can.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that NextDNS fulfills the needs of many people. Nonetheless I believe there’s something seriously wrong with the company. I’m convinced a PrivacyGuides moderator should reach out to NextDNS over the concerns listed here - and when a satisfactory response is not given, remove the service from PrivacyGuides.org.
Here I go.
Contact details are almost impossible to find.
They haven’t responded to my emails, at all. On their own forum, many have complained about getting the exact same treatment. I’ve asked them for a refund - nothing. I filed a chargeback request, which was granted to me because even the bank couldn’t get a hold of them.
A main feature of NextDNS is the ability to block websites. However, many blocklists are hopelessly outdated. Just as an example, their Mastodon blocklist hasn’t been updated in two years. The list contains a pathetic 51 Mastodon instances, out of the > 9,000 there are.
They do not have a Terms of Service. While having this document might not be obligatory, it’s strange. This also means you don’t know what rights you have when purchasing from this company.
They shut down DNS0 without communicating anything about this. They did not announce this before it happened, nor have the people involved made any statements since. Unless I’m missing something, DNS0 just basically disappeared of the face of the earth, with only the news media left to explain what happened.
No business address. Can NextDNS be held accountable in case of misconduct? It’s very hard to even find out in what country the company is registered.
Their privacy policy is insufficient. Just look at it - it’s a total joke. No contact options, no business details, no DPO, nothing.
It’d be pretty fair to consider their user forum dead.
I can’t answer to many of your other points. But they offer a wide variety of blocklists from external maintainers. These at least tend to be very frequently updated.
I’ve been using NextDNS for years and I’m inclined to agree. While the DNS service itself still works there appears to be zero customer service and zero ongoing development.
What is the best alternative? My main use case was setting up my family members’ devices with it to keep them protected from ads, scams, phishing, malware, etc. I know I could put them on Mullvad, but the advantage of NextDNS is that I can manually whitelist things in case there’s a false positive and something breaks.
There is one alternative service that basically does the same thing but is actively maintained. I won’t name them, because I might come of as a shill if I do. But PrivacyGuides lists them.
I tried AdGuard myself and it doesn’t work with VPN if you use Fastest Country. It works with static, I tried all bootstrap ips and blocking with a firewall but it always leaked if the server changed. That’s why I’m back to NextDNS which works perfectly.
Yeah, the support is bery much nonexistent, and it has been in maintenance mode for a while now, but I heard they recently resumed development.
NextDNS as a product for me has been solid so far. Few hiccups aside, it has a neat UI and external lists are well updated which I would recommend instead of solely relying on NextDNS ones, which was the case even when they were active. Can’t say the same for AdGuard UI, which judging from their payment page is really not designed for phones. Not to mention the vast servers which NextDNS has which last I checked competitors lacked, though it has been a while.
Hopefully they improve on the customer service side because I understand one bad experience can ruin total outlook on the product. I had one with ControlD, and I no longer recommend it to anyone even though it’s a solid product in itself.
For me it is Control D. Support is responsive and they have a very active Discord server. Latency is good, sometimes even better than NextDNS. Supports 3rd party blocklists, in addition to their own lists and you can report false positives and negatives on their Discord, which gets fixed in a short time.
I also tried Adguard DNS. Not sure what kind of routing they configured but it is not selecting nearest servers, has leaks and support is very bad.
As well but started with them over a year, quite satisfied …
Note, the standard fare is probably sufficient for most, but if you need to have your IP address forwarded, then that is extra … depends on one’s needs
Their AI question responder is pretty good even on complex questions … and my early questions were well responded before Barry !