DNS Proxy
A server that takes your DNS queries, forwards them to a resolver and returns the answer, without carrying any of your actual traffic.
A DNS proxy is an intermediary for name lookups. Your device asks it where example.com lives, it asks a resolver upstream, caches what comes back and answers you. Networks run them to cache popular answers, to filter domains, and to control which resolver their users reach.
It is worth being precise about what it does not do, because the name invites the wrong assumption. A DNS proxy never carries your HTTP requests. Your connection to the site still leaves from your own address. Anyone expecting it to hide their IP has confused it with an HTTP or SOCKS proxy.
Where DNS genuinely matters for proxy users is the order of operations. A client that resolves the hostname before opening the proxy connection has already told its own resolver where it is going, and has resolved from its own location rather than the exit's. The first is a privacy leak; the second quietly returns the wrong CDN edge, and on retail sites sometimes the wrong catalogue.
The fix is not a DNS proxy. With SOCKS5 the scheme socks5h tells your client to hand the hostname to the proxy and let it resolve. With an HTTP proxy this happens anyway, because the hostname travels in the request. Set that correctly and the DNS question resolves itself.
Who answers the name lookup
A DNS proxy sits between your device and a DNS resolver. Your machine asks it to turn a hostname into an address, and it forwards that question onward, caches the answer and hands it back. Nothing about the web request itself passes through it.
That is the distinction people miss. A DNS proxy resolves names. An HTTP or SOCKS proxy carries traffic. They solve different problems, and using one where you needed the other produces a setup that looks configured and leaks anyway.
The reason DNS shows up in proxy work at all is the ordering of the two steps. If your client resolves the hostname locally before opening the connection, your own resolver sees every target you touch, and the geography of that lookup is yours rather than the exit's. Both of those matter: the first is a privacy leak, the second returns the wrong CDN edge and sometimes the wrong prices.
Where resolution happens on our endpoints
We do not sell a DNS proxy, and you do not need one. What matters is which scheme your client uses, because that decides who resolves:
Local lookup versus remote lookup
# resolves on YOUR machine, your resolver sees the target
curl -x socks5://login:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://example.com
# resolves on OUR side, which is what you want
curl -x socks5h://login:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://example.com
# HTTP proxying always resolves remotely: we get the hostname
curl -x http://login:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://example.com
# check what the exit actually resolved
curl -x socks5h://login_c_DE:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://api.ipify.org- The single letter in socks5h is the whole difference. Without it your resolver handles the lookup and the proxy only carries the connection.
- HTTP proxying has no such trap. Your client sends the hostname in the request line or in CONNECT, so resolution is ours by design.
- Geo-targeted work needs remote resolution for accuracy, not only for privacy. A German exit paired with a lookup from your own machine can land you on the wrong CDN node entirely.
- If you must pre-resolve for some reason, remember you have then pinned one address and lost whatever geographic routing the target's DNS would have done.
DNS proxy against the things it is confused with
It is not a proxy for your traffic
It answers name lookups. Your requests still go out from your own address unless something else carries them.
It is not the same as a Smart DNS service
Smart DNS reroutes selected lookups to unblock streaming. A DNS proxy is the plumbing, not the product.
It does not fix a DNS leak on its own
Pointing at a different resolver changes who sees your lookups, not whether they travel outside the tunnel.
It is not needed with our endpoints
Use socks5h or plain HTTP and resolution already happens on our side.
Related terms
See this in practice
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