What is Smart DNS? How it will help you Overcome Geoblocking?

You might have heard of Geoblocking, right?

For the ones who haven't- Due to complicated licencing, the majority of streaming services restrict content to specific areas. This is called Geoblocking.

Now you might think that you can access it using VPN, but what if your device will not support VPNs?

However, if you use a clever DNS provider to change your virtual location, you can access geo-restricted content from other nations.

So eager to know about Smart DNS? But before you must have a deeper understanding of DNS.

What is DNS? What does it do?

DNS, which stands for "domain name system," is frequently compared to an IP address phone book.

An IP address is a special identifier given to each device connected to the internet, in case you're not aware. The domain name system connects a website's domain name to its IP address, making it simple and natural for users to traverse the internet.

You can use a device's IP address to communicate with it online if you wish to like to access a website (the device in this case is the server the website is hosted on).

However, this can be challenging to accomplish and calls for an understanding of a website's IP address. Instead, we typically utilise the domain name of the website, such as Google.com or youtube.com

You can access a website by typing its domain name into your browser, which enables the communication between your device and the website's servers.

The next thing we have to look at is how the DNS queries work.

You submit a "DNS query" to a website's servers each time you interact with it. These requests cannot, however, be made simply through the website. The queries must pass through a DNS server, which converts the input from your browser into a command that the website's server can understand, as seen in the image below.

Your internet service provider's (ISP) own DNS servers often handle your DNS requests. This implies that your ISP can easily delete specific websites from its DNS database and prevent its consumers from accessing them (usually at the behest of the government).

You can gain access to those restricted websites again by manually changing your DNS to a trustworthy service like OpenDNS.

What is Smart DNS?

The same idea that we discussed previously is used by smart DNS providers to handle your DNS requests. Smart DNS, however, also goes above and beyond to cover up your true location.

Providers have several options for achieving this. The smart DNS server removes all identifying information from your DNS traffic, leaving only a DNS request that looks to originate from its own location. This is crucial.

Your original IP address can still be easily linked to you owing to a lack of encryption, just like with a proxy server. In order to further sever your connection from the streaming website you're trying to view, some providers, like Surfshark, couple the DNS server with a proxy server. Even in this situation, the proxy server does not assign you a name.

A smart DNS service can often only unblock specific streaming websites and regions and offers a limited number of fixed locations. The majority of smart DNS services can only unblock content from the United States, though some can also unblock content from the United Kingdom or other popular countries.

Additionally, unblocking content doesn't require you to manually switch regions. For instance, you can unblock US-only Hulu and UK-only BBC iPlayer without changing servers if there are servers in both countries.

The disadvantage is that if a service has numerous regional libraries, the American library will always take precedence and you won't be able to access the British library. library.

Unfortunately, clever DNS cannot circumvent more difficult geoblocks because it does not encrypt your traffic. Particularly Netflix might be challenging or even impossible to use.