How to set custom DNS Servers in Windows

Domain Name System, commonly known as DNS is a critical part of the modern web. DNS allows systems to locate and communicate with various resources located around the world.

Once your device requests a website such as geekbits.io, it uses the DNS server (either on your local machine or your ISP) to locate the IP address of the site. In this case, 178.128.137.126 your browser or client can now communicate with the server hosting the site you are looking for.

Let's get to it.

Method 1 - Using the Control Panel

The most common method to setup custom DNS servers is using the Windows control panel. In the TCP/IP settings of a network.

Open your Windows Control panel

Click Network and Internet

Next, select Network and Sharing Center on the navigation pane.

Change adapter settings.

Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:

To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click the Ethernet interface and select Properties.
To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click the Wi-Fi interface and select Properties.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.

Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.

Click OK.

Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.

Replace the addresses with the IP addresses of the target DNS servers:

For example, you can set IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for Google DNS Servers
For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844 for DNS Servers
You can also set IPv4: 1.1.1.1 or 1.0.0.1
For IPv6 2606:4700:4700::1111

Once completed, open the command prompt and run the command:

ping 8.8.8.8
or
ping 1.1.1.

You should see an output as shown:

Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=115
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=115
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=115
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=115

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 16ms, Maximum = 25ms, Average = 20ms