Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

I'm a fan of DoH, but I'm also a Chromecast owner, so I get to experience the downsides of application-level DNS resolvers. Chromecasts will ignore the DNS servers set by DHCP, and will cease to function if they cannot communicate with Google's DNS servers[1].

That means my network-enforced DNS preferences that block ad and malware sources are ignored, and I see more ads than I want to. It also means that when Google drops support for my Chromecast model like they did with the older Chromecast models, I'll be slightly less secure than I would be if I could enforce my own DNS preferences.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19170671

That's more of a result of the fact that Chromecast is a locked-down, proprietary platform that doesn't allow you to reconfigure it. In fact, it's not really application-level DNS if the entire Chromecast system uses it, it's just hardwired to servers that you can't change because its not an open platform.

What Chromecast devices did they drop support for? I have a Gen 1 Chromecast and it still works just fine.

Gen 1 Chromecasts will not receive any new updates from Google, but will continue to function.

Oh wow I did not know that.

I believe you are referencing possibly old data.

I have a Chromecast. I also redirect all port 53 traffic (DNS) back through my own DNS server at the firewall level (does not go to Google DNS). It works perfectly fine wihtout directly using Google DNS.

Yes, they do ignore the DNS set by DHCP, but that can be worked around.

AFAIKT, you can block Google DNS and all your Google Cast devices should fallback to DHCP assigned DNS.

Oh, good to know. I just let it think it's using Google and like redirecting it behind the scenes

This is accurate. I drop all of my google gadgets access to google DNS services and they use my local DNS.

Which model Chromecast do you have?

2nd gen

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