I downloaded Next DNS over a year ago and ever since it’s augmented my online experiences. Whether it be video and music streaming or casual browsing, this app has done it’s job perfectly. But as of about 2 or 3 days ago I’ve stumbled across an issue. Whenever I use this app to skip crunchyroll ads the video leaps back 5 minutes or so from where the ad was. It’s somewhat of a minor issue but it still considerably disrupts my viewing experience. This is the first issue i’ve come across within my year of usage which is why i’ve chosen to give 4 stars. But if this issue were to be resolved i’d be delighted.
Everything changed when the fire nation attacked…until this came along.
Been using Blokada for a long time but then they decided to make it paid. I can’t surf the web without looking at a bunch of “hot moms near you” ads so I was searching for many alternatives. Sadly, none of them worked. However after a bit of patience and resilience, I managed to find this amazing service. Not only does it provide many blocklists, it has a clean web interface with everything you could possible want from it. I highly recommend this app if you want to block the most ads possible. I recommend using many blocklists to block the most ads possible and also keeping it on most of the time for best results!
The developers need to stop pushing their configuration profile onto people and start to focus on development of their app. Most people prefer the app so give people what they want. Besides the developers need to start giving people a choice between DoT and DoH rather than force the slower DoH onto people. And give people an option to use a VPN connection to enable DoQ (QUIC) since Apple currently doesn’t offer native support for QUIC. And there is a reason people prefer the app. For starters it’s easier to set up and it’s easier to turn the DNS on and off compared to the configuration profile. With the app you simply add your ID and then once you have the app enabled you can turn the DNS off and on directly from the app. The configuration profile takes more time to set up and you have to always go back into settings to turn it off and on. But seriously NextDNS needs to start making DoT available in both their app and configuration profile. Even Mullvad DNS offers a DoT version of their configuration profile. I personally refuse to use the configuration profile. Currently I use DNS Security Pro because it lets me use NextDNS’s DoT standard and has a similar off and on button. The only downside is it costs $2
This is an excellent service. I don’t feel like I really need a VPN much these days since most traffic is HTTPs anyways now. But I don’t want my information tracked or sold so Next DNS is great. It doesn’t impact your Internet speed hardly at all and also is fine on your battery life for iOS devices, doesn’t drain your battery. It’s also quite fast and will also automatically use the nearest of their servers to your location. Furthermore, I no longer have to use browser plug-ins for ad blocking since it has filtering built-in. All in all this is an excellent service that I’m quite happy with.
These developers have come forward with a superb tool for protecting your privacy and also has some great security add-ones. I’ve installed this tool on all my mobile AND desktop devices. Go to their site online to get additional tools for the desktop. All tools and blocklists are configurable from the web page for your own custom setup. There is logging, so you can see what is being blocked and why. You can also install this on a router to protect all the devices on your home network. Wish I was that technically savvy. You can subscribe for unlimited queries ($20 a year, CHEAP!) and frankly, they deserve the money.
NextDNS is no joke when it comes the the amount of configurability and settings that allow you to fine tune your network privacy + protective blocking. no other service offers this type of setup that is this easily usable with VPNs that allow customers DNS configurations. the service is practically free but does have a $3.99/mo after 300,000 BLOCKED queries, so with that said I never have to pay and I use NextDNS on all my devices 24/7 & it’s configured to my router but I still averaged 180k to 235k BLOCKED queries each month with daily use. GET ON THE TRAIN AND START USING NEXTDNS TO PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY, BLOCK ADS, & STAY SAFE FROM MALWARE.
Since the new update, my profiles for my iPad, iPhone and home WiFi, which all had separate block lists, are ALL blocking the same thing, there’s no separation. I tried deleting and reentering the nextdns DNS settings on my home routers settings, using the ISP one, then waiting a bit, and then adding back the NextDNS settings, nope, didn’t work. Then adding to the headache, my NextDNS website kept showing the red dot on the setup page. Saying “this phone is not using NextDNS”. I deleted the configuration ID, turned off the NextDNS app, reentered the Config ID, turning on the app again. Same crap. All profiles are all somehow blocking randomly the same thing. I went on my phone, went to VPN & Network and went on DNS and added next dns. It’s annoying and confusing as to what went wrong
Version 1 with the “fake” VPN always worked and allowed the user to use NextDNS service even when running another VPN simultaneously. Version 2 that switched over to native DNS does not work when running a VPN because iOS defaults to the VPNs DNS server. The “fake” VPN option is removed in version 2. It would be nice if the user had the option to use either native DNS or the “fake” profile depending on their use case.
Won’t even accept password in account created 4 hours ago. And it won’t even reset the password. I’m guessing this was just to obtain peoples information since not only did it completely slow down my phone worse than any other safety app or blocking app but you want people to install a profile potentially giving you complete MDM control over a users device? And now I can’t even access this so called free account? Sorry but something is completely out in left field. Too many red flags!
It works. Beautifully. Running the app for years and there's been no issues or interruptions. It simply works flawlessly and can't get any easier to use. There haven't been updates in over a year. Can I suggest adding more features to apple shortcuts to automate NextDNS a little more?
Love the app. There are a few times when I cannot open magic links. In these instances I would like access to the admin interface to see which request is being blocked by which list. Is prefer it to be in the same app, but a second app would be acceptable.
This app used to work some years ago but doesn’t work anymore, and toggling the switch on or off has no effect. Reinstalling the app and allowing it permissions didn’t help either. The app seems to be abandoned since there have been no updates for two years. When I check what DNS is used — either at the NextDNS website or another DNS Leak Detection site — it doesn’t show NextDNS (shows my ISP). The developers/maintainers don’t respond on the community forums anymore.
I can now read news articles without dealing with all the add stuff. I also think my battery life has improved because I have my settings pretty high on blocking marketing/tracking data from going out of my phone.
UPDATE: Look, you guys are great, but for gods sake breathe some life into this app life cycle. FORMER GLOWING REVIEW: I can’t even begin to write about how amazing this service is. You have to see for yourself. Especially those more technically inclined. This is like the Pi-Hole for you never wanted to build anyway. Seriously. To boot, NextDNS is a progressive company that really does work towards internet freedom. They practice what they preach. No shady stuff here. And trust me- I’ve caught similar apps with their pants down in my network traffic, and it ain’t pretty.
I’m not a tech expert but NextDNS is easy to use. Blocking is impressive and I rarely have any issues with access. I also use on my Mac and added a paid subscription, because I think this is worth supporting given all the privacy issues these days.
The sole reason I have been using a VPN for years was to stop my ISP from seeing my DNS queries. With this service, now I don't have to and don't have to deal with shared VPN congestion issues anymore. A+ for the features and beautiful ios and mac app.
This idea is excellent and I will continue to keep tabs of this service to see how it improves. For me, I had too many issues using the service. For example my phone and ipad would not connect to the internet at work while this was turned on. At home I could not connect to One Drive while this was on.
Posted a prior review that noted that ad white space isn’t removed and this continues to be the case to some extent. The service is inconsistent as this is completely blocked sometimes and not others. I use the profile download method and not the app. Also tried the app and the same thing happened.
Good service but there are no configuration settings in the app itself. You need to log into the website in a browser to change things like blocklists and logging options and view logs and analytics. It would be much more convenient to have all the web based stuff available in the app as well.
Does what it says on the tin, and helped me discover exactly how much Samsung devices tend to phone home to Korea in an average weekday. Installed onto our iOS devices and our router — fantastic product. Highly recommend.
Hi! I’d like to know what happens when this app is no longer in beta. Will we all have to pay for a subscription or only the people who didn’t use the app during beta. Also this is amazing, I love it.
How come you guys don’t offer real time support for your product to your paid customers and your free customers too. You just like the money you receive from us? And how come you don’t make regular improvements to your app there hasn’t been a update since 3 years ago
Please put an explainer on your website, front page. I LOVE NEXT DNS from what I've seen so far, DL a few days ago on Mobile IOS 11 updated sw. Am I missing a NEXTDNS VPN profile to add to VPN& MANAGEMENT settings? Before NDNS, I use cloudflare and protonvpn on Iphone 11. Works great. Ran through all the NDNS hoops to get it working on Iphone 11, EXCEPT it when VPNs are engaged, NDNS is NOT and vice versa. As soon as I disconnected from VPNs, got some monkey business that I believe NDNS will take care of. Is NDNS also a VPN? What is happening? At least give us a way to contact a real human at your company. I don't have time to work on this.
Worked great for a couple days; however, the app started turning off and on over and over again, effectively making my internet connection useless until I deleted the app. Fix, and I’ll give 5 stars and re-download.
It was awsome using this app for playing games for me but after upgrading my IOS versionto IOS 14, this app goes to DNS part in settings and doesn’t write VPN on the top bar! So the game doesn’t run Help please
Not sure if it’s working I followed instructions to enable. But when I go to disable and check back in settings, NextDNS still shows selected instead of going back to “Automatic”.
Super happy to have a win for privacy when the exploitation of it has been so rampant recently. The app is super sleek and was very easy to install and use. Nice job!
Had it for a couple months. Wondered why i stopped getting my voicemail notifications. I could only access my voicemails by holding down #1 key the old-school way. Spent a couple hours with tmobile trying to figure it out. As soon as i disable the nextdns app…..everything works now.
App is more than year out of date, DNS servers using a 2 year old operating system that has been discontinued by the OS vendor, system red flagged by US DHS as being used by multiple ransomware gangs, all raising serious security and functionality concerns.
Please bring back or an option to choose. This new iOS 14 feature is not working. My scenario 1) NextDNS 2) VPN. Is iOS setting you can have 2 VPNs at the same time one so called personal one configuration. Next dns was configuration. Now it is inside DNS so VPN messes with NextDNS. Please change it or add an option to do so. Thank you.
I’m a paying subscriber but the app hasn’t been updated in almost a year, and is incompatible with the latest iOS version. Network exclusions can no longer be added, and Comcast has started blocking encrypted DNS.
If you research products before you buy them, don’t use this. It breaks most links to products, breaks links to store websites in search engines, and didn’t block a single ad.
Doesn’t Block Ads Anymore. Need a Fail Proof Ad Blocker
What happened!? This doesn’t block ads anymore, I keep getting popup ads on a cooking website in Chrome when using this piece of ****. I guess I’ll have to use FreeVPN😡
Please NextDNS team bring the old features back to iOS 14. Your implementation of DNS that runs as a VPN on phone is much better and is VPN friendly (meaning I can have their VPN with NextDNS server). Thank you.
Encrypt all DNS queries on all networks with the official NextDNS app for iOS. On iOS 14, this app uses the new native Encrypted DNS setting. You can set your configuration ID from your NextDNS account in the Settings to bring your blocking policy to your phone and get Analytics and Logs about your traffic. If you do not have a NextDNS account yet, you can create one for free at https://nextdns.io.