Public DNS

[Brainbleach 5]

How less secure (if any) would someone be if they decided to use public DNS servers with their VPN connection instead of air's dns?

[flat4 79]

less secure

[OpenSourcerer 1378]

I wouldn't outright say "less secure". But DNS itself is an unencrypted protocol and easily manipulated. This info is being sent into the internet for anyone in the middle to casually grab.
If you're connected to AirVPN and use AirDNS, queries will profit from the OpenVPN tunnel's encryption because they won't leave the connection. The same goes for "their VPN connection" if the VPN tunnel itself is encrypted and queries are also routed through it, as in, all traffic.
The bigger problem is that some public DNS providers (and most VPN providers for that matter) can be problematic: Google logs your queries, some people don't trust Cloudflare, OpenDNS has the audacity to dictate what is good and what not, and we have a forum about other VPN providers..

[Brainbleach 5]

Thank you for your response.  The issue i'm having is the router I use is a Netgear XR500 Nighthawk and it uses an OS called DumaOS.  It has what's called a hybrid-vpn feature that I use.  Basically, I can assign what devices I want to use AirVPN while other devices like my gaming console do not.  However, I can't specify the VPN to use seperate DNS servers other than the ones that are configured for the entire network.  This issue will be fixed in a future update to DumaOS.  So in the mean time i've configured my DNS servers to 3rd party ones since I obviously don't want to use my ISP's DNS.

My threat level isn't anything major league, just mostly wanting to stay secure enough for some p2p torrenting and whatnot.   Edited ... by Brainbleach
corrected errors

[Air4141841 23]

I do this for azirevpn.   I have reported to them multiple times their primary DNS server stops responding.  although the tunnel is UP>.   DNS does not resolve.

adding a public DNS server resolves the issue entirely.

the way it works is when their DNS is up.  it resolves using that server.    when it no longer resolves.   it passes through the public DNS server.   NOT IDEAL.   but this does work very well 

[PeCEadRIgm 0]

On 10/18/2019 at 2:06 PM, Brainbleach said:

Thank you for your response.  The issue i'm having is the router I use is a Netgear XR500 Nighthawk and it uses an OS called DumaOS.  It has what's called a hybrid-vpn feature that I use.  Basically, I can assign what devices I want to use AirVPN while other devices like my gaming console do not.  However, I can't specify the VPN to use seperate DNS servers other than the ones that are configured for the entire network.  This issue will be fixed in a future update to DumaOS.  So in the mean time i've configured my DNS servers to 3rd party ones since I obviously don't want to use my ISP's DNS.

My threat level isn't anything major league, just mostly wanting to stay secure enough for some p2p torrenting and whatnot.  

I'm trying to get DumaOS working with a VPN and it doesn't work. I've entered my username/pass, copied a config I've generated in the text box but it doesn't seem to load correctly. Did you do anything special to get it working?

[Brainbleach 5]

On 4/15/2020 at 12:48 PM, PeCEadRIgm said:

On 10/18/2019 at 8:06 AM, Brainbleach said:

Thank you for your response.  The issue i'm having is the router I use is a Netgear XR500 Nighthawk and it uses an OS called DumaOS.  It has what's called a hybrid-vpn feature that I use.  Basically, I can assign what devices I want to use AirVPN while other devices like my gaming console do not.  However, I can't specify the VPN to use seperate DNS servers other than the ones that are configured for the entire network.  This issue will be fixed in a future update to DumaOS.  So in the mean time i've configured my DNS servers to 3rd party ones since I obviously don't want to use my ISP's DNS.

My threat level isn't anything major league, just mostly wanting to stay secure enough for some p2p torrenting and whatnot.  

I'm trying to get DumaOS working with a VPN and it doesn't work. I've entered my username/pass, copied a config I've generated in the text box but it doesn't seem to load correctly. Did you do anything special to get it working?

Yes, you have to download the iOS OpenVPN config file from the website and copy/paste into the Hybrid-VPN setup on the router.