You might get a quicker browsing experience by changing the DNS servers your devices use to look up internet names. Chromebooks let you set a custom DNS server for a wireless network. Here’s how.
RELATED: The Ultimate Guide to Changing Your DNS Server
Changing DNS servers at the device level is pretty easy, no matter what device you’re using. If you’re planning to change all your devices, you might want to consider changing the DNS server on your router instead. Still, if you just need to change those settings on your Chromebook, we’ve got you covered.
First, open the Settings screen on your Chrome OS device. You can do this in a browser by opening the main menu, and then clicking the “Settings” option. You can also click your notification tray, and then clicking the gear-shaped “Settings” icon.
Click the “Wi-Fi” option under Network at the top of the Settings screen.
Click the name of the Wi-Fi network to which you’re currently connected to change its settings. Note that you can come back later and follow this procedure again to change the DNS server for your other Wi-Fi networks, too.
Click to expand the “Network” section, locate the Name servers option at the bottom of the expanded Network section, and then click the dropdown menu to its right. Select “Google name servers” to use Google’s Public DNS servers, or select “Custom name servers” to provide your own addresses.
If you choose Google’s DNS servers, the IP addresses are entered for you. If you choose custom name servers, you’ll need to enter the IP addresses of the DNS servers you want to use here. For example, you could enter 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 to use OpenDNS. Enter the primary and secondary DNS server addresses on their own separate line.
Once you’ve typed the IP addresses, be sure to either press Tab or click outside the text field after typing the second address. If you close the window while typing the second IP address, it saves only the first IP address and not the second one. When you’ve done that, you can close the window. (And yes, that’s weird and this interface should ask you instead of just forgetting what you’re in the middle of typing.)
Your Chromebook will remember these settings when you reconnect to the network in the future, but the settings only apply to the Wi-Fi network you just changed. If you have several different Wi-Fi networks on which you want to use custom DNS, you’ll have to change the DNS server option separately for each one.
