How to access blocked websites without using VPN

There are a lot of ways of accessing blocked sites on your device- may it be blocked by the government for nudity, or by the ISP for posing some threat. The easiest and the most widely used method of accessing such sites is to use a VPN- Virtual Private Network. Although this method is pretty good and it protects your privacy as well, but it’s certainly not good for a high-speed network, and for loading HD videos.

So in this post, we shall be talking on how we can access those blocked sites while maintaining our internet speed, and in most cases- making it even faster!

Yes, we are talking about using DNS. DNS- Domain Name Servers are those things which convert the web URL (eg- https://www.aabhusanaryal.com.np/) into an IP (eg- 172.217.17.115). Many people like to take it as a phonebook full of numbers. You don’t remember each number individually- instead, when you need someone’s phone number, you just turn the pages of a phonebook and search for the person’s name. Here, DNS acts like a phonebook of the Internet.

The default DNS by your ISP may not always be as good as it should be. And moreover, it has censorships! So the concept here is to use a different DNS to bypass that censorship. Sounds easy right? Well, it is indeed very easy! Let’s get right into it!

Note: Click here to read a cool article by Cloudflare about DNS!

So firstly, for mobile phones. If you are using Android P or higher, you have an in-built feature to use a private DNS. All you need to do is:

Go to settings> Network and Internet> Advanced> Private DNS.

There, select “Private DNS” and enter the following hostname:

1dot1dot1dot1.cloudflare-dns.com

As easy as that.

Now, what if you don’t have Android P or higher?
In case you have rooted your phone with magisk, you will find a module named “Magisk Google DNS”. Just download and install/ flash it and you’re good to go after a reboot.
There are modules for Cloudflare DNS too, so you might browse those as well.

But what in the case of not having Android P or a rooted phone?
Well, that’s not a problem either. Just download any DNS changer app from the play store and set the following DNS:

Google DNS:
DNS 1-   8.8.8.8
DNS 2-   8.8.4.4

Cloudflare DNS:
DNS 1-   1.1.1.1
DNS 2-   1.0.0.1

Note- These non-root methods use VPN in order to connect you to the DNS. Although it uses a VPN, your connection is much faster than what it used to be (using a traditional VPN) and also your location is not tampered.

These are the ones I personally use. You may try some other DNS like Free DNS, but I found the speed to be not so good. I currently use Cloudflare, as it worked the best for me. Cloudflare also claims that it is faster than Google DNS, so it’s definitely worth a shot!

For a PC user too, the process is quite similar.

Firstly, go to Control Panel> Network and Internet> Network and Sharing Center

Here, click on the WiFi network you use and click on Properties. If you use Windows 7, you can simply do this by right-clicking your WiFi from the taskbar and clicking on Properties.

Now that you’re in there, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and click on Properties. There, click on “Use the following DNS servers addresses” and type in the DNS configurations as:

Google DNS:
DNS 1-   8.8.8.8
DNS 2-   8.8.4.4

Cloudflare DNS:
DNS 1-   1.1.1.1
DNS 2-   1.0.0.1

If you have a router that supports IPv6, you might as well configure DNS for IPv6 by selecting Internet Protocol Version 6 and then clicking Properties. Again, select “Use the following DNS servers addresses” and type in the DNS configurations as:

Google DNS:
DNS 1-   2001:4860:4860::8888
DNS 2-    2001:4860:4860::8844

Cloudflare DNS:
DNS 1-   2606:4700:4700::1111
DNS 2-   2606:4700:4700::1001

So that was it- you can now enjoy all the blocked contents at a pretty high speed!