I have set up my router to use the Cloudflare DNS, and I also set up my laptop and mobile to use the DNS also.
On iPhone the DNS setting is Wifi specific, so I was just repeating the settings in the router for that network already.
Is there any point or benefit to doing this, even if minor? Or if the setting is on the router then is it just irrelevant?
Thanks!
Generally speaking there isn’t a need to manually set the devices if you have already set them at the router. The router is applying the same settings via DHCP. If you have a device using a static IP, you may have hardcoded another DNS server in the past, changing it could make sense. But for other devices picking up the settings manually, probably no benefit.
There is one advantage to configuring static resolver IP addresses on non-router devices: it protects against “DNS Changer” malware families, that compromise routers and change the DNS settings to use rogue resolvers.
On the other hand, going through the router has advantages.
For starters, routers usually cache DNS responses in order to reduce latency.
Routers can also serve local names, so that you can connect to a device on the local network using its name instead of its IP address. This can mandatory for TV or VoIP when these services are provided by the ISP.