Quad9 Foundation · AS19281
Quad9 was founded in 2017 as a non-profit by IBM, Global Cyber Alliance, and Packet Clearing House. The service at 9.9.9.9 is a recursive DNS resolver that compares every query against a real-time blocklist of domains known to host malware, phishing, and command-and-control infrastructure. Domains on the list return NXDOMAIN, preventing the lookup from completing.
9.9.9.9 is ideal for households, schools, and small businesses who want a "set it and forget it" layer of malware protection without installing endpoint software. Many privacy-aware users prefer Quad9 over Google or Cloudflare because of its Swiss non-profit jurisdiction and complete absence of advertising or commercial relationships.
9.9.9.9 is operated under ASN AS19281, with anycast points of presence in 100+ locations globally. The service supports plain DNS, DNS-over-TLS (port 853), DNS-over-HTTPS (dns.quad9.net), and DNSSEC validation. There is also a non-filtering variant at 9.9.9.10 for users who want Quad9 without the malware blocking.
Quad9 publishes a strict no-log policy. It is incorporated as a Swiss non-profit, which provides stronger legal privacy protections than US-based services. Annual transparency reports detail any requests for data (typically none, since logs are not retained).
No, Quad9 blocks malicious domains, not advertising. For ad blocking use Pi-hole or a browser extension.
Marginally — checking the threat list adds a few ms. In most benchmarks Quad9 is within 5-10 ms of Cloudflare and Google.
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