The Internet Protocol can only route packets to an IP address, not a name. So, if you try to connect to a website, such as example.com, your system must first resolve that domain name, example.com, into an IP address for the server that hosts that website.
This is done by connecting to a Domain Name System (DNS) server. You connect to a domain name server by knowing in advance its IP address. The IP address for a domain name server is usually assigned by your ISP.
Many other domain name servers are made publicly available by different organizations. Here are a few free and public DNS servers:
| DNS Provider | IPv4 Addresses | IPv6 Addresses |
| Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 | 1.1.1.1 | 2606:4700:4700::1111 |
| 1.0.0.1 | 2606:4700:4700::1001 | |
| FreeDNS | 37.235.1.174 | |
| 37.235.1.177 | ||
| Google Public DNS | 8.8.8.8 | 2001:4860:4860::8888 |
| 8.8.4.4 | 2001:4860:4860::8844 | |
| OpenDNS | 208.67.222.222 | ...
