Today after years of using 8.8.8.8 as my DNS, Google, I changed my Ubuntu Studio to 9.9.9.9, Quad 9. I don’t know much about DNS. I am meant to be a bit more private for doing this. What next steps should I do to make Quad 9 help my privacy and security?
I’m not a network buff but how I understand secure DNS is that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) can still see that you are making DNS requests.
However, they cannot see the content of the requests, because it’s been encrypted.
So your ISPs can detect that you are using another DNS services and see the IP addresses you are connecting to, they cannot however decipher the actual domain names or URLs you are accessing. As far as I understand it, I’m sure someone more technical will correct this if I’m wrong in my assumption.
So this helps add a layer of privacy to your online activities, as ISPs are unable to monitor or track your browsing habits based solely on DNS queries.
So in regard to a next step there’s not much else I think you can do with your Quad 9 DNS.
You could enable the more secured Quad 9 version 9.9.9.11. See the link here for the extra features that gives you. Quad 9 Service Addresses & Features
But I think if you are wanting to up your privacy more against say your ISP, you may want to look at a VPN.
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Only if you use encrypted DNS, not if you just use regular 9.9.9.9 in your settings.
There are also still ways your ISP can see the domain names you are connecting to, but DNS-based tracking and filtering is the most common, so it at least eliminates that most common attack vector. But if you know your ISP doesn’t modify DNS responses then using another provider won’t do too much for you, and if you’re worried about the potential of your ISP tracking you a VPN is a more robust solution.
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I did not know that 
I use Mullvads DNS so wasn’t aware. Is that a specific problem for Ubuntu?