I'm looking for a setup that provides basic security and privacy, but should start off by saying that I'm not an expert, and prefer something simple that would be good enough and won't require constant tinkering, rather than a perfect solution...
- I have an Asus RT AX88U with stock firmware, and a subscription to Private Internet Access.
- I don't want to put the VPN on the router, because we need different devices connecting to different locations, and want to be able to also quickly switch locations on some specific devices.
- Up until now we simply had the vpn on each device, but it's not always switched on (sometimes causes problems with some sites for example with work websites).
- I had never given much thought to DNS resolvers until now, and realised that is something I probably need to correct.
- I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to have a separate DNS solution on the router, which would mean that all traffic from the various devices, even if someone is not using the VPN, would at least go through that and provide a certain layer of privacy and malware/ad blocking.
- Is this a good idea?
- Can I use a DNS setting taken from PIA (they have something called Mace) and change DNS setting on the router without actually having the full vpn on the router?
- Should I use a different DNS resolver (NextDNS, CtrlD, or something else)?
- If I do one of the above, what would happen when the VPN is working on a device - would it cause a problem with the DNS resolver on the router? I read somewhere that having a separate VPN and DNS resolver can actually make one's system appear suspicious and trigger more attention so is not good practice?
