DNS Resolution

[island4ever]

I noticed that Island has either recursive or DNS over HTTPS as choices. Is there a recommended setting here? Which one is "best" for regular island users at home? I remember that recursive is sometimes faster....but otherwise can't remember much in the way of differences.

[Lew]

DNS over HTTPS is often faster because the DoH providers build very large caches of results.  It also shields your requests from your ISP and anyone in the path, but the DoH provider obviously knows what your queries are.  That's why we default to CloudFlare.

Recursive mode builds a local cache, and because it goes to the DNS root, any ISP not using DPI generally won't inspect your queries, but they are observable.  Going to the root also allows Island to validate results using DNSSEC.

So there's no one choice that is perfect in every way, but DNS over HTTPS to CloudFlare generally offers a good balance of performance and security.