DNS stands for Domain Name System, which is basically a method of assigning cute nicknames to ugly IP addresses. Every devices on network has their IP addresses. I dont want to talk about IP addresses in detail in this blog, however IP addresses distinguish devices on the network. Suppose we want to browse facebook, what we are normally doing is making some https requests to facebook’s server. And to make request to facebook’s server, we need to know the server’s IP address. It is a pain in somewhere to remember a numerical jargon like 192.168.10.33. This is where the great DNS comes to rescue.

DNS server works somehow the same way as phonebook app in our phone. By simplying remebering the names and not their phone number, we can make a call to people we want. DNS server contains ip address and domain name of servers. For example: when we enter www.facebook.com in our browser, according to the nameserver provided to us, generally by our ISP, it is translated to corresponding ip address and connection is made.

In *nix systems, nameserver is stored in a configuration file called resolv.conf. If you want to query which nameserver is currently being used by your device, navigate to the file /etc/resolv.conf. You can do this by typing following command.

	$ cat /etc/resolv.conf

You might find something like

	nameserver ip-address

Here’s a cool hack. If your ISP has disabled some sites, you can simply change nameserver’s ip address from resolv.conf file to point other nameservers. Google’s nameserver’s ip address is 8.8.8.8. If you want a faster internet with no restrictions as made by your ISP, change your nameserver ip-address to 1.1.1.1. If you open 1.1.1.1 in your browser, you might find that 1.1.1.1 is ip address of DNS server of Cloudfare.

To do this, open /etc/resolv.conf file with your favorite text editor, delete or comment the line which contains previous nameserver. And add a line as below.

	nameserver 1.1.1.1

There you go, with a faster internet and with no restrictions as made by government of Nepal.