You linked their DNS server, which is not their proxy, but yes I use both.
Cloudflare often comes under fire for privacy concerns, but that's literally true of every public DNS server out there. No one can feasibly run their own DNS server at home. Those requests ultimately have to go somewhere.
I don't use Google's DNS server, because their business model relies on their ability to spy on you. Cloudflare's business model relies on providing reliable network services, and maintaining public trust. In addition, the scale of surveillance they would have to do with the volume of requests they get per second is entirely unfeasible. They simply have too much data flowing through their servers for it to be reasonable.
Could they be spying on me? Yes, but so could anyone, and among the options, they are the least motivated to do so.
No one can feasibly run their own DNS server at home. Those requests ultimately have to go somewhere.
Recursive DNS servers will contact root DNS servers. You CAN run a recursive DNS at home quite easily. The only downfall is that root DNS typically doesn't support any of the encrypted DNS options.
Right, and I would prefer to not accidentally make my home DNS server vulnerable to zone transfer attacks, or have all my requests leave my home unencrypted regardless. This can be done, but the risks and overhead outweigh the benefits.
For my threat model (and probably most everyone's), using Cloudflare's encrypted DNS is good enough for me.
I just use the DNS proxy on my Mikrotik. If you communicate with the root DNS servers in plain text, then it can be just sniffed too. Hard to win here as to have to trust something at one point.
I like their DNS management and the fact that they only charge the minimum fee to renew domains. But I don't use their DDoS protection or proxy services or anything.
Cloudflare's roots go back to 2004 when Mr Prince and Cloudflare co-founder Lee Holloway were working on a computer industry project they called Honey Pot.
The idea was that people with websites signed up for free, to install software which then tracked people who sent unsolicited emails.
Five years later Mr Prince was doing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Harvard Business School, and the project was far from his mind, when he got an unexpected phone call from the US Department of Homeland Security asking him about the information he had gathered on attacks.
Mr Prince recalls: "They said 'do you have any idea how valuable the data you have is? Is there any way you would sell us that data?'.
"I added up the cost of running it, multiplied it by ten, and said 'how about $20,000 (£15,000)?'.
"It felt like a lot of money. That cheque showed up so fast."
Mr Prince, who has a degree in computer science, adds: "I was telling the story to Michelle Zatlyn, one of my classmates, and she said, 'if they'll pay for it, other people will pay for it'."
And so the idea for Cloudflare was born, with Ms Zatlyn as its third co-founder.
Quad9 is interesting def going to leverage it, still lacks edge delivery, which is critical for responsiveness. I'm keeping an eye on https://runonflux.io/ for edge.
I've been using it for small apps like this and served a minor data-api through it a couple years back, I found it mostly smooth and easy, I dont usually need more composition and if I do Ill use AWS or Azure. I found it to give a lot for your dollar if you are familiar with working things in cloud deploys to be cost effective.
I'm considering expanding into the zero trust area and setting up some tunnels and support infra for my company.
I'm concerned mainly with any pricing gotchas but If anyone has terrible horror stories of bad service, lost data or dodgy mgmt I am all ears.
I've not hit any pricing gotchas. They've made it really clear when you're about to go somewhere that costs money (with clear "upgrade to pro" or "purchase" buttons if your account doesn't have access to a feature) in my experience. Personally I run the free tier on all my domains (although I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking about the 20$ personal tier) and professionally I run a few sites on the 200$ business tier. In all cases and for all domains I've not seen anything that red-flagged for me as a problem. I think I'm quite sensitive to that sort of stuff personally. I've dropped vendors for pretty petty stuff professionally. Actually in the professional environment I have a case of a managed SIEM arguing about Cloudflare being at fault for an integration problem. Cloudflare's documentation has been stable and actually leads me to believe cloudflare over the SIEM.
Lost data would instantly make me look for alternatives. I don't know much about dodgy management... but official support has been stellar and account managers have been very helpful while not pushing me into products that are not a good fit (literally had one of their engineers outright say, this isn't the right product for you based on what you've told us while on a sales call).
Your experience may vary... I could just be really lucky and happen to get the "right people".