Question about VPN and DNS

Privacy Questions
1

Hello PrivacyGuides community,

I plan on start using ProtonVPN all (or most) of the time. My main reason for wanting to use a VPN is that I don’t trust my ISP and my cellular provider at all. I don’t consider websites trying to track me based on my IP address a threat.

Right now I use NextDNS with custom configuration on my iPhone and I really like the control it gives me over what domains I wish to block.

My question is: How can I setup correctly ProtonVPN and NextDNS together on my iPhone? Is that possible? Maybe this is possible only with third party clients such as the WireGuard client?

Based on my threat model, I don’t care if the websites and my ISP know that I use NexDNS. I just don’t want my ISP knowing which websites I visit.

Thanks in advance

2

Your VPN already changes your DNS settings to their own. There’s no need to change it. ProtonVPN prevents DNS leaks to 3rd parties by default, even on their free tier. You can still change it if you trust your other DNS provider. I highly recommend switching away from NextDNS

  1. In ProtonVPN: Settings > Connection > Custom DNS Servers
  2. Anything routed through the VPN now uses your custom DNS, in this case NextDNS.

Note: your VPN DNS settings would ideally be set on your router to allow all your network connections to be using a secure DNS provider (which the VPN already enforces).