What is SmartDNS? (and how is it different than a VPN?)

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Video Timestamps
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0:00 - Introduction
0:22 - What is SmartDNS?
0:46 - Understanding Georestriction
1:17 - Spoofing Your Location
1:50 - Recommended SmartDNS Services
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What is Smart DNS and how is it different from a VPN or a virtual private network? Simply put, Smart DNS is a technology that is used to disguise your location, allowing you to access geo-restricted content.

Unlike a VPN, which encrypts and reroutes all of your internet traffic through another server, Smart DNS is more akin to, let’s say switching the license plate on a car. The car’s actual location hasn’t changed, but the plate indicates another state or country.

This is useful for you when it comes to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, BBC and other popular services that geo-restrict content. Here’s the deal. Despite the global nature of the internet, these companies license their content based on location, so they can only show a particular movie or TV show in particular country. It’s ridiculous but it’s reality. So if you’re traveling outside your own country, you’re stuck watching only the content that is available in that country. In some places, like China, they’ll block everything.

What Smart DNS does is trick these services into thinking that you’re in a location that you’re really not. It’s call spoofing your location. When you connect to the internet through Smart DNS, you can choose which country’s license plate you want on your car and when you access a site like Netflix or Hulu, they check your plate and serve you the content they’re allowed to give you.

Sometimes they can spot a fake location but most of the time they can’t. And if you think about, when you’re paying for the service, it’s stupid that you’re not allowed to stream the content anyway.

For more information on securing your internet activity and protecting your privacy online, check out the rest of the videos on the All Things Secured channel.

[AllThingsSecured]

If you have any questions about SmartDNS, feel free to leave a comment here. Otherwise, I recommend you try one of these SmartDNS services:

[caleb]

I think that makes sense. I've constantly heard "get a VPN" and "try out
SmartDNS" but I never quite understood the difference. I appreciate the
excellent video explanation!

[projectwheels]

This series is very informative! Thank you!

[mikehughes]

Wish we had a little more detail on the dns part.. Maybe how to set up

[PaulDowsettUK]

You don't mention the main reason to use it - as a workaround for the many multimedia devices, like TVs, that don't support VPN. Hence, you can configure their nameservers (in network > TCP/IP settings) with the SmartDNS server IP addresses.

It's still not clear how it actually "spoofs" your location, as you claim. DNS simply translates a hostname to an IP address. So, clearly SmartDNS is responding with a substitute IP address for the TV provider servers. Your IP address isn't changed, so the TV provider's server will still know that your IP is from another country. Why don't they block it?

The only way I can speculate it works is that the substitute IP address is of the SmartDNS provider's server, and that server is a proxy server located in the TV provider's country, which relays the request to the TV provider and renders it for the client.

I'd appreciate an explanation, as the video misses out these crucial points.

[mauriciorosales]

I realize this is a year old, but what this does is simply query (dns) from a different geo located server and these providers are doing their geo assessment based on which of their server you hit - since you queried from a different location. The dns server is not really ‘smart’ just in the right geo IP block.

[lynnroe]

YouTube's Video on VPN, on Launch apps or games. I have a thumbs up and thank-you for your tutorials on these subjects.

[gregdavies]

Ok.. I got the difference between a VPN and SmartDNS .. (just) but the licence plate analogy makes no sense. How do I find a licence plate for the BBC?

[Dnman]

Is Smart DNS secure? How do things play when you enter personal information whilst using Smart DNS?

[TheQuarterbackX]

Wondering. It sounds like you are saying my IP still comes up, but my location will show up different?

[almightyty]

Please help me.. I'm having some major red flags that I wish you could explain.

[AlJalandhari]

So if I install a smart dns and go on netflix do I have access to the whole world’s Netflix content or just a random country’s?

[EQUAL.RIGHTS.ALL]

Hi,
Does our isp know that what we are watching.
Do they cause any issue?
Regards

[jamesSmith-cxpd]

Could you help me out dns be used of torrenting

[artsoto]

Does this work for YouTube TV? While on Surfshark VPN, I was in Mexico, and couldn't play on my YouTube TV because it recognized my location even though my vpn was at Atlanta, but I did not have smart dns turned on at the current time, never knew about it till now

[kylepearce]

Is it legal having this sort of software, if you were to get caught with it?

[kyleschepitan]

Anyone here use smart Dns? And is it trust worthy in terms of giving out my banking details?

[sajidkhanmahmood]

should have started the video by talking of the cost. I thought it was free untill i google

[theo]

Jesus, yet another SMARTdns video that doesn’t explain how SMARTdns works.

[lyndajones]

thanks for the info. too bad the music is really bad and distracts 100 percent. royalty free music is terrible. gives the impression whoever made the video has very little integrity, honestly. for professional content i find it an odd choice. it really should never get used. how hard is it to create sounds if you can create content like youtubers do. kind of absurd.