dns settings and privacy question

[d3adf1sh 1]

OS: windows 10
so as long as i've been using airvpn i have just left my dns settings to automatic.  well lately over the last maybe 6 months i've noticed a lot of sites that i click on from search results wouldn't load.  all the big names i have no problems it's with oddball results.  so i thought it was weird there were so many, so one day i tried accessing them with opera gx with vpn turned on and said sites load fine (except really slow) and come to find out, the same sites will also load when not connected to vpn.  so i'm guessing they just aren't listed on air's dns?  maybe?

i guess my question is, is it safe to change the dns in control panel/networking to use something like cloud flare or will that comprise privacy?  would that fix the issue?

i thought about maybe starting to keep a list of sites that wouldn't load over the vpn in case you guys would want it but i haven't done it so far but i will start if that would help things out.  i only run into maybe 1 or 2 a week sometimes it's more or less depending on what i'm doing.  but it's definitely been a thing.  thanks!

edit: and to be clear, they aren't sites that are blocked because i'm using a vpn (i've run into those too) but when loading the either timeout or 404, like they don't exist.

Edited ... by d3adf1sh
add relevant info

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

8 hours ago, d3adf1sh said:

i guess my question is, is it safe to change the dns in control panel/networking to use something like cloud flare or will that comprise privacy?  would that fix the issue?

It's possible, the DNS requests will still be routed through the VPN, so you'd have encryption up to the VPN server.
 

8 hours ago, d3adf1sh said:

i thought about maybe starting to keep a list of sites that wouldn't load over the vpn in case you guys would want it but i haven't done it so far but i will start if that would help things out.  i only run into maybe 1 or 2 a week sometimes it's more or less depending on what i'm doing.  but it's definitely been a thing.  thanks!

Just post one or two here, I'll check DNS and reachability.

[d3adf1sh 1]

re: "Just post one or two here, I'll check DNS and reachability."


ok i got one for ya www.pinkfloydarchives.com

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

On 11/11/2022 at 8:04 PM, d3adf1sh said:

ok i got one for ya www.pinkfloydarchives.com

Cannot reproduce, no timeouts or 404s with that domain.

[d3adf1sh 1]

https://dr.loudness-war.info is another one.  and it use to work but doesn't anymore through the vpn.  i'm normally logged in on canadian servers.  just switched to a US one and it still times out.

[d3adf1sh 1]

http://site.swiftech.com/ i get 403 forbidden but reachable w/out vpn

[d3adf1sh 1]

On 11/13/2022 at 6:01 PM, OpenSourcerer said:

Cannot reproduce, no timeouts or 404s with that domain.

ok, i know this is a kinda old post but i figured out one thing but it's created two more.  so last week i was running into a bunch of sites that wouldn't load so i went to check my dns settings and there was only one selected and it's whatever eddie is setting and that's for the eddie network adapter and for ethernet adapter their both the same.  i'm on win 10 btw.  so i set 1.1.1.1 for second dns for both adapters.  low and behold all the sites are loading that wouldn't before so cool, i'm happy. ok, sometimes i just leave pc on standby but after a few days later i hit one that didn't load, didn't think much of it but come to find out what had happened was i had either shut down or restarted my pc because i went back into network adapter settings and i'm back to only having one dns set for both adapters and it's the one eddie loads in there. 

edit: so just now i figured out you're suppose to load the dns servers you want to use in to eddie. and i did that but for some reason, tonight now none of those sites i listed above would load, i tried four different dns servers and i've hopped around to two each airvpn servers in canada and america and 1 netherlands!  i swear it was working the other night!     would reboot maybe clear something? i doubt it, don't remember doing it the other day.  tried restarting browser couple times, no luck.  and i know both sites i'm trying to log in to are up because if i use opera gx which has a built in free vpn  they load just real slow.  i usually use vivaldi but also made sure they weren't loading with Edge browser too to make sure it wasn't a browser issue.  maybe they both are just blocking air?  if so would it 404 time out like that?  because other sites will just tell you they don't accept anonymous connections.

so if i have two custom dns servers listed in eddie do i still also want the "check airvpn dns" box checked?  what about checking the box that says something about ignoring ipv6 pushed by server? (tried both ways and still won't load)
also just more info when i check the adapter settings after changing dns servers in eddie and switching servers you know i notice that ipv4 has ip and dns filled in.  but ipv6 only has ip adress, no dns,  that wouldn't have anything to do with it would it? like all the regular stuff like amazon, youtube, ebay, all that stuff works.  the ones i've been testing so you don't have to scroll up
www.pinkfloydarchives.com
https://dr.loudness-war.info


(this next things not as big a deal as the one above because last week i hit a bunch of sites that wouldn't load)
but while i got your attention, when i disconnect from and shutdown eddie my pc doesn't connect to the internet and i did figure that out a while back a couple eddie versions ago, on this forum, that it's from eddie messing with dns settings, if i go in to adapter settings and change it back to automatic it will connect.  i figured that out because someone else was having that problem and seem to remember someone saying that was a bug and should be fixed?  so is there any easy solution for that?  if not i'll just go in there and manually change it if i really need to, which wouldn't be that often, usually only when i got to log in to my american express account

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

On 2/28/2023 at 9:21 AM, d3adf1sh said:

so if i have two custom dns servers listed in eddie do i still also want the "check airvpn dns" box checked?

Of course not. That check is there to make sure AirDNS is used. It can't check for any other DNS servers.
 

On 2/28/2023 at 9:21 AM, d3adf1sh said:

what about checking the box that says something about ignoring ipv6 pushed by server?

That's for IPv6.
 

On 2/28/2023 at 9:21 AM, d3adf1sh said:

but ipv6 only has ip adress, no dns,  that wouldn't have anything to do with it would it?

Doesn't really matter. A DNS server listening on v4 can happily resolve v6 and vice versa.
 

On 2/28/2023 at 9:21 AM, d3adf1sh said:

seem to remember someone saying that was a bug and should be fixed?

Could've been me. What's the version of Eddie you're using?

[d3adf1sh 1]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:00 PM, OpenSourcerer said:

Could've been me. What's the version of Eddie you're using?

2.21.8  and this is in reference to where eddie changes dns settings to where if i close the vpn the internet doesn't connect unless i go in to system dns settings and change it back to automatic.  i guess eddie changes it whenever it starts?  and why wouldn't it set it to the custom setting that i have in eddie and goes back to some weird address which i think is the ip address of the air server i was just on?    maybe i need to totally uninstall and reinstall eddie because the last time i just did an upgrade if i remember correctly or just installed new one on top of old...?

also is there a reason all those sites won't connect even when i tell eddie to use custom dns, but they will if i'm not connected to vpn or connect using opera browser's vpn?   are we guessing it's just them trying to block vpn's?

i guess it's just weird that you said those sites loaded fine for you but me and the other fellow that tested them wouldn't load for us unless we shut down vpn.  and there are actually more than those but i figured no sense in listing them because whatever the problem is it's the same with all of them?

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

14 hours ago, d3adf1sh said:

i guess eddie changes it whenever it starts?

Whenever a session is started, to be more precise. Eddie not changing it back looks like an old bug, unless you're killing Eddie when terminating it.

All those questions of yours are asked in vain if you don't provide logfiles, or in this case Eddie's system report to have a glance at what you configured explicitly. What is this "weird address" it's being set to? It's more expressive to have some output.