Last month, internet performance company Cloudflare announced a “privacy-first” alternative to the domain-name servers that are normally controlled by your internet service provider. By changing a couple settings on your device or in your browser, Cloudflare’s DNS service prevents your internet provider from tracking your browsing habits and monetizing that data. It’s fast, often more reliable than the ISP’s DNS service, and free to use.
But as Ars Technica reports, users of AT&T’s home internet service have experienced problems using the new DNS service, leading some to believe that AT&T issued a firmware update to block users from enabling Cloudflare’s DNS. AT&T, for its part, blames the problem on an “unintentional conflict” and says it should be resolved soon.
Numerous threads from the DSL Reports user forums document the problem, which seems to relate to a misuse of the 1.1.1.1 IP address. Cloudflare owns that address and uses it for its DNS service, but it appears that some networking gear — including AT&T’s routers — use it as an internal interface.
“With the recent launch of Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS service, we have discovered an unintentional gateway IP address conflict with 1 of their 4 useable IPs and are working to resolve the issue,” an AT&T spokesperson told Ars Technica.
Anyone who’s having problems using the 1.1.1.1 address should use 1.0.0.1, one of the alternate addresses, AT&T said.
To set up Cloudflare’s free DNS service, just visit https://1.1.1.1 from your browser, and follow the installation instructions.
