9.9.9.9
Quad9 is the only large-scale, nonprofit recursive DNS resolver built specifically to protect users — not to profit from them. No data collection. No tracking. No commercial motive. Just security and privacy for everyone — done with integrity. Quad9 is a global nonprofit foundation headquartered in Switzerland, operating entirely in the public interest. That structure is what separates Quad9 from every commercial DNS alternative. Other providers may offer free services, but they are typically subsidiaries of for-profit corporations with advertising revenue, data licensing, or commercial upsell as their business model. Quad9 has no such incentive. It cannot collect or monetize user data — not because of a policy, but because of how it is legally constituted and where it operates. Quad9 exists to serve the privacy, security, and performance needs of its users. That’s the mission. There is no other agenda. Your IP address is never logged in any Quad9 system. Ever. That’s not a marketing claim. As a foundation based in Switzerland, Quad9 is legally bound by Swiss internet privacy law — among the strongest data protection frameworks in the world and comparable to GDPR. No personal data is collected, stored, or sold. There is no user profile. There is nothing to hand over and nothing to monetize. When you use Quad9, the only thing that happens with your DNS query is that it gets answered — and if the destination is malicious, blocked. Quad9’s threat blocking is powered by intelligence from 35+ trusted threat intelligence providers — organizations that continuously identify and report malicious domains based on their own detection methods. That includes scanned malware discovery, network behavior analysis, phishing detection, and individual reports of suspicious activity. When you click a link or enter an address, Quad9 checks the destination against this continuously updated blocklist in real time. If the domain is associated with malware, viruses, adware, phishing, scams, or other malicious intent — the lookup is blocked. Your device never connects. The threat never reaches you. Quad9 also supports DNS over TLS (DoT), DNS over HTTPS (DoH), and DNSCrypt for encrypted query transport, and applies DNSSEC validation to ensure responses are secure and tamper-proof. Quad9 operates across 240+ locations in 110+ countries, with servers positioned primarily at Internet Exchange Points — where network interconnections are densest and latency is lowest. Queries are routed via anycast, automatically directed to the nearest operational system. This isn’t infrastructure concentrated in wealthy markets. Quad9 is deliberately distributed across emerging and underserved regions, where reliable, secure DNS has historically been unavailable or commercially unviable. Quad9 systems are distributed worldwide — not just in high-population areas — meaning users in less well-served areas benefit from the same protection and performance as those in major markets. In 2024, Quad9 blocked 119,002,560,233 threats — an average of more than 670 million every single day. That scale reflects what’s at stake. Phishing, malware, and ransomware attacks are not edge cases — they are the baseline threat environment that every internet-connected device operates in. Quad9 reduces that exposure automatically, for every user, without requiring any action beyond a DNS configuration change.
Most DNS services are free because you’re the product. Quad9 is free because security should be.
Nonprofit by Structure, Not Just by Promise
Privacy by Law
Security Built on Collective Intelligence
Global Reach, Consistent Performance
The Numbers
670M+
avg. daily blocks
119B+
total blocks in 2024
260+
resolver clusters
35+
threat intel providers
100M+
users protected