Mullvad shuts down its public encrypted DNS and funds Quad9 instead

Mullvad has announced that it is winding down the public encrypted DNS (DoH) servers it has operated since 2022, and will support the Quad9 Foundation instead of running its own public resolver service.

What changes

The Swedish VPN provider says its public DoH servers are unnecessary for anyone using Mullvad VPN, because traffic is already encrypted and the VPN's internal DNS handles all queries. Outside the VPN the servers served two purposes: Mullvad Browser used them by default when a user was not connected to Mullvad VPN, which kept the internet provider from seeing which domains were visited, and anyone could use them as a free public service to protect their DNS lookups.

According to the company, that service should continue to exist, but it no longer intends to run it. Running a privacy-focused public DNS service is a highly specialised undertaking, Mullvad argues, and the Quad9 Foundation is the undisputed leader in the field. Rather than duplicating those efforts and achieving only part of what Quad9 does, Mullvad says it will direct the resources towards financially supporting Quad9.

What users need to do

Anyone who configured Mullvad's DoH servers manually should switch to another resolver before 2 November 2026; Quad9 publishes guides for the move. Mullvad Browser users who kept the default DoH settings, or the variant that includes the browser's ad blocking, will be migrated to Quad9 automatically.

Custom setups will not be touched. Mullvad says it will not change DoH settings that a user has modified, so those who manually configured one of the Mullvad DoH variants, such as base, extended or family, should set them back to the default. Existing DoH profiles for iOS and macOS will also stop working and need to be replaced with the corresponding Quad9 profiles.