What is DNS?

What Is DNS and What Does It Do for Me?

In today’s digital age, we rely on the internet for nearly everything—whether it's working from home, streaming movies, or connecting smart devices. But have you ever wondered how your computer knows where to find all the websites or web services you use and visit? That’s where DNS comes into play.

A Simple Analogy: DNS and Your Phone's Contact List

Computers fundamentally operate with numbers, not words. When you visit a website like "maidstonenetworking.com," your computer doesn’t actually understand the name itself—it only knows how to communicate with other computers using numeric IP addresses (e.g., 192.168.1.1 or 104.26.10.228). Think of an IP address as the street address that specifies the exact location of a particular house in a neighborhood, except here it's the location of a server on the internet.

Imagine the world before smartphones when people had to memorize individual telephone numbers to call their friends or family. If you wanted to reach John, you'd have to remember his number, say, "518-555-1234." Computers work in a similar way—they rely on IP addresses to locate and connect to websites. Just like memorizing phone numbers can get confusing with so many contacts, memorizing IP addresses for every website would be nearly impossible for us humans.

Enter DNS, which works much like the contacts app on your phone. These days, instead of remembering phone numbers, you save contacts under names like "John" or "Anna." When you want to call someone, you simply select their name, and your phone translates that name into the corresponding phone number. Similarly, DNS allows you to type "maidstonenetworking.com" into your browser, and it translates that domain name into the IP address of the server hosting the website.

Without DNS, browsing the web would be like using an old rotary phone—forcing you to memorize and manually enter long numerical sequences for every site you visit. DNS simplifies this process, making the internet accessible and user-friendly, much like your phone’s contact list revolutionized the way we communicate.

Why Should You Care About DNS?

For home office users, understanding DNS can improve your productivity and help you troubleshoot common network issues. For example, if your internet seems slow or certain websites won’t load, it could be a DNS problem. By configuring your network to use faster or more secure DNS servers, you can improve both performance and security.

How Maidstone Networking Can Help

At Maidstone Networking, we’re experts in IT support for homes, home offices and small Businesses. We can assist you with optimizing your network, including DNS settings, ensuring a faster, safer, and more reliable internet experience. We can setup DNS servers for you to help block malware prone sites, adult sites, gambling sites and more. Whether you're dealing with connectivity issues or looking to enhance your network’s security, we’re here to help.