08-19-2022 , 12:14 PM
Today we are releasing AdGuard DNS 2.0. This is a big moment for us, which we have been steadily moving toward since 2016. A lot has happened in this time – and I have so much to tell you. Let's follow the journey that AdGuard DNS has made from a half-baked experimental project to a full-fledged product with more than 50 servers in 15+ locations.
History
It's hard to believe, but on July 26 AdGuard DNS turned 6 years old. It appeared at a time when AdGuard versions for all major platforms had already been released and we were trying to figure out how to protect from ads and trackers devices on which AdGuard could not be installed. That's when we had the idea of creating a DNS service as a way to get to the next level.
AdGuard DNS was born as a completely experimental project that we didn't plan to spend much effort on. The first version of AdGuard DNS was written in Java, using existing developments from AdGuard for Android. It took us only about two or three weeks to do everything from start to finish, post the announcement, and launch the service.
Problems were not long in coming. After all, you can't just take two weeks and make a high-quality service. A task that seemed very simple at first glance turned out to be much, much more difficult in reality. And as the number of users grew, it became clearer that everything we did had to be thrown out and redone.
I'll never forget one night when I was taking the train to my hometown to visit my parents, AdGuard DNS stopped handling the load due to too many users. I frantically tried to fix the situation, but could hardly do anything because of the terrible connection quality. This was probably the longest AdGuard DNS outage ever. But it helped us finally make the decision to completely rewrite the service and take it much more seriously.
AdGuard DNS 1.0
We've changed the technology and the implementation approach. Rewritten in Go, AdGuard DNS gained the ability to handle high load and work with servers geographically dispersed around the world. And, of course, it supported all known DNS protocols with out-of-the-box encryption. This resulted in the official AdGuard DNS release (all the time before that, the service was technically a beta).
The most important "byproduct" of our work during that period was AdGuard Home, a network-level DNS server that blocks ads and trackers and is based on the same technologies as AdGuard DNS. After overcoming all the challenges of setting up AdGuard Home, the user has full control over the network and all of his devices without installing any client applications, and can also manage the filtering process via the web interface.
Interesting fact: by the end of 2019 AdGuard DNS was handling about 27K requests per second, with only a third of them coming from encrypted protocols (DoH, DoT).
![[Image: info-dns-2.png]](https://cdn.adguard.com/public/Adguard/Blog/DNS_1_year/info-dns-2.png)
By 2022, the situation had changed dramatically. Today, AdGuard DNS handles about a million requests per second, and over 90% of those requests are encrypted. That's a 37 load increase in two and a half years (actually, the number is even higher, because encrypted protocols are much "heavier" than regular DNS).
On the one hand, this is great! AdGuard DNS has become one of the most popular public DNS resolvers in the world. But on the other hand, such a large-scale service is no longer able to work in the old "experimental" mode. So what did we decide? Of course, to rework the whole thing!
Meet AdGuard DNS 2.0
What did the old version of AdGuard DNS lack? It was an install-and-forget service, in other words, it didn't allow you to manage blocking. That was good enough for some people. But looking at AdGuard Home users, we knew that many wanted to control requests and decide for themselves what and how will be blocked on their devices.
With the release of AdGuard DNS 2.0, all of this is now possible – and available in the Private AdGuard DNS. It combines simplicity of configuration with many useful features that allow you to see and control all requests coming from your devices, customize the blocking to suit you and enjoy the service.
Domain blocking management
Enable the blocklists you need and disable unnecessary ones, block sites via the Query log, add your own DNS filtering rules to User rules (one at a time or as a list) – configure AdGuard DNS 2.0 to block only what you need.
More Info HERE
History
It's hard to believe, but on July 26 AdGuard DNS turned 6 years old. It appeared at a time when AdGuard versions for all major platforms had already been released and we were trying to figure out how to protect from ads and trackers devices on which AdGuard could not be installed. That's when we had the idea of creating a DNS service as a way to get to the next level.
AdGuard DNS was born as a completely experimental project that we didn't plan to spend much effort on. The first version of AdGuard DNS was written in Java, using existing developments from AdGuard for Android. It took us only about two or three weeks to do everything from start to finish, post the announcement, and launch the service.
Problems were not long in coming. After all, you can't just take two weeks and make a high-quality service. A task that seemed very simple at first glance turned out to be much, much more difficult in reality. And as the number of users grew, it became clearer that everything we did had to be thrown out and redone.
I'll never forget one night when I was taking the train to my hometown to visit my parents, AdGuard DNS stopped handling the load due to too many users. I frantically tried to fix the situation, but could hardly do anything because of the terrible connection quality. This was probably the longest AdGuard DNS outage ever. But it helped us finally make the decision to completely rewrite the service and take it much more seriously.
AdGuard DNS 1.0
We've changed the technology and the implementation approach. Rewritten in Go, AdGuard DNS gained the ability to handle high load and work with servers geographically dispersed around the world. And, of course, it supported all known DNS protocols with out-of-the-box encryption. This resulted in the official AdGuard DNS release (all the time before that, the service was technically a beta).
The most important "byproduct" of our work during that period was AdGuard Home, a network-level DNS server that blocks ads and trackers and is based on the same technologies as AdGuard DNS. After overcoming all the challenges of setting up AdGuard Home, the user has full control over the network and all of his devices without installing any client applications, and can also manage the filtering process via the web interface.
Interesting fact: by the end of 2019 AdGuard DNS was handling about 27K requests per second, with only a third of them coming from encrypted protocols (DoH, DoT).
By 2022, the situation had changed dramatically. Today, AdGuard DNS handles about a million requests per second, and over 90% of those requests are encrypted. That's a 37 load increase in two and a half years (actually, the number is even higher, because encrypted protocols are much "heavier" than regular DNS).
On the one hand, this is great! AdGuard DNS has become one of the most popular public DNS resolvers in the world. But on the other hand, such a large-scale service is no longer able to work in the old "experimental" mode. So what did we decide? Of course, to rework the whole thing!
Meet AdGuard DNS 2.0
What did the old version of AdGuard DNS lack? It was an install-and-forget service, in other words, it didn't allow you to manage blocking. That was good enough for some people. But looking at AdGuard Home users, we knew that many wanted to control requests and decide for themselves what and how will be blocked on their devices.
With the release of AdGuard DNS 2.0, all of this is now possible – and available in the Private AdGuard DNS. It combines simplicity of configuration with many useful features that allow you to see and control all requests coming from your devices, customize the blocking to suit you and enjoy the service.
Domain blocking management
Enable the blocklists you need and disable unnecessary ones, block sites via the Query log, add your own DNS filtering rules to User rules (one at a time or as a list) – configure AdGuard DNS 2.0 to block only what you need.
More Info HERE