# yokoffing/NextDNS-Config: a hardened NextDNS setup guide, not an app

> The repository is a documentation project that tells you which NextDNS toggles to leave on and which to turn off, with blocklist and TLD recommendations. It installs nothing, so its value depends on whether you accept the author's overblocking trade-offs.

**yokoffing/NextDNS-Config** — Setup guide for NextDNS, a DoH proxy with advanced capabilities

- Repository: https://github.com/yokoffing/NextDNS-Config
- Stars: 3,173 · Forks: 76
- Language: Unknown
- License: GPL-3.0
- Published: 2026-09-24 · Updated: 2026-09-24 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/yokoffing-nextdns-config

## What yokoffing/NextDNS-Config actually is

This is a configuration guide, not software. The repository contains a README, a LICENSE file, an icons directory and a .github folder. There is no source tree, no package manifest, no build step. The README opens with a set of guidelines and then walks through the NextDNS dashboard, marking each toggle with an enabled or disabled icon and explaining why.

The problem it addresses is decision fatigue. NextDNS exposes a long list of security toggles, blocklist slots and logging options, and the defaults are not obviously right or wrong. A user who turns everything on gets a resolver that breaks sites. A user who turns everything off gets no benefit. The guide's stated first principle is to prevent overblocking by applying the law of diminishing returns, using quality blocklists, and allowing most top-level domains.

Who it is for: someone who has already decided to use NextDNS and wants a second opinion on the settings page. The README's second guideline is the grandma test, meaning the configuration should work for a non-technical household member with few exceptions, and each deviation is documented in place. That framing tells you the target reader is a home network administrator, not an enterprise DNS team.

## How the guide encodes its recommendations

The mechanism is simple and worth understanding before you follow it. Each feature gets a short section with a linked source, a callout box when there is a caveat, and an image that encodes the recommendation. An enabled icon means turn the feature on; a disabled icon means leave it off. The images are pulled from the repository's icons directory, so the recommendation is visible even in a rendered README without reading the prose.

The conditional logic is where the guide earns its keep. Threat Intelligence Feeds carries a caution that says to leave the feature enabled only if you use something other than the recommended blocklists, and it links two issue threads as evidence. Cryptojacking Protection has the same shape: leave it enabled if your blocklists differ from the recommended set. That is a real design decision. These feeds overlap with curated blocklists, and running both produces duplicate blocking and harder debugging when something legitimate breaks.

Google Safe Browsing gets the opposite treatment, with a caution that it was not designed as a DNS-level blocker and may flag legitimate CNAME domains as scams, and that NextDNS can take months to remove a false positive. AI-Driven Threat Detection is marked disabled even though the README notes NextDNS labels it beta and that most users report it works well. The guide does not explain that particular call beyond the beta label, which is the thinnest reasoning in the document.

## Installing nothing: applying the settings in the NextDNS dashboard

There is no install command. The README's first instruction is to sign up for NextDNS through a referral link, which is also how the page is funded. Everything after that happens in the NextDNS web dashboard, so the practical workflow is to open the dashboard in one tab and the README in another and walk down the settings page.

The guide's own example of a copy-paste artifact is the top-level domain block list. The README presents it in a collapsible block and says the entries below should allow everyday browsing while blocking commonly abused TLDs. Copy the lines exactly as they appear, one per line:

```
.autos
.best
.bid
.boats
.boston
.boutique
.charity
.christmas
.dance
.fishing
.hair
.haus
.loan
.loans
.men
.mom
.name
.review
.rip
.skin
.support
.tattoo
.tokyo
.voto
```

The README also points to hagezi's Most Abused TLDs list for additional entries, so the block above is a starting point rather than a complete set. After pasting, the expected result is that navigations and subrequests to those suffixes stop resolving. The README is explicit that this feature stops both site navigations and subrequests, which is why the list is short.

For the blocklist slots themselves, the README links to its own blocklists section and to a privacy lock section rather than reproducing lists inline. That means the blocklist choices live elsewhere in the document, and the security toggles are written on the assumption that you have read them first. Follow the sections in order or the conditional advice will not make sense.

## Where the guide will break your browsing

Block Newly Registered Domains is the clearest trap. The README marks it enabled, then warns that blocking NRDs may cause occasional false positives, tells you to be selective when adding them to your allowlist, and adds a rule in bold: never give sensitive information to a newly registered domain. The final line is the one that matters for most readers. If you plan to set and forget your configuration, disable this setting. A guide that recommends a toggle and then tells a large share of its audience to turn it off is being honest about the trade-off, but it also means the recommendation is conditional on how much attention you will pay.

TLD blocking is the second failure mode, and the README states it plainly: blocking TLDs risks blocking legitimate sites along with malicious ones. The curated list reduces the blast radius but does not eliminate it. If you operate a service on a .name or .support address, or a supplier emails you from one, that traffic disappears with no obvious error.

Google Safe Browsing is the third. The caution about CNAME false positives and slow removal means a misclassification can persist for months while you wait on someone else's process. For a home network that is an annoyance. For a small business whose payment or email domain gets caught, it is a support problem with no local fix. The guide is documentation, so there is no rollback command, no dry-run mode and no logging layer of its own. Your rollback is the NextDNS dashboard's own history and the undo you do by hand.

## NextDNS-Config versus a self-hosted Pi-hole

The topics list on the repository includes pi-hole and pihole, and the comparison is the right one to draw. Pi-hole is software you install on hardware you control, typically a Raspberry Pi on the local network. It resolves DNS locally, stores query logs on your own disk, and applies blocklists you configure yourself. NextDNS is a hosted resolver, and this guide is a set of instructions for its web dashboard.

The difference in approach shows up in three places. First, where the filtering runs: on your LAN for Pi-hole, in NextDNS infrastructure for the guide's target. Second, who maintains the blocklists and security feeds: you for Pi-hole, NextDNS for the hosted service, with this repository only advising which ones to enable. Third, what happens when you leave the house: a Pi-hole only filters devices on its network unless you route traffic back to it, while a NextDNS profile follows the device through its configuration ID or DNS-over-HTTPS endpoint.

That last point is the reason the guide exists in this form. Its advice is about profile settings that apply across networks, which a local resolver cannot offer without extra plumbing. If you want query logs on your own hardware and no third-party resolver in the path, Pi-hole is the different tool, and no amount of tuning the toggles here changes that.

## Maintenance, licensing and what it costs to keep up

The repository is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-06-11. There are no releases, which fits a documentation project: changes arrive as commits to the README and the icons. That also means there is no changelog to read when something shifts, so the way to track updates is to watch the file history rather than wait for a version tag.

The upgrade cost is your own time. NextDNS can add or rename dashboard features, and the guide has to be edited to match. The conditional advice around Threat Intelligence Feeds and Cryptojacking Protection is tied to specific issue threads, so if those threads resolve differently, the recommendation may change without any version number telling you. Re-read the sections you rely on before assuming the settings page still matches.

The licence is GPL-3.0, per the LICENSE file at the repository root. For a documentation repository that is an unusual choice, and it matters if you plan to reuse the text. GPL-3.0 is a copyleft licence, so redistributing or adapting the guide carries obligations about how the derived work is licensed. This is not legal advice; if you intend to republish the TLD list or the prose in a product or a paid guide, read the licence text and get proper advice. The referral link in the sign-up step is a separate matter: it is the author's funding mechanism, not a licence term.

## Conclusion

Adopt this guide if you already use NextDNS and want a documented starting configuration that errs toward fewer blocks rather than more. Skip it if you need a self-hosted resolver, since nothing here runs on your hardware, or if you want a set-and-forget configuration, because the guide itself warns that Block Newly Registered Domains should be disabled in that case. Before applying anything, verify the current state of the NextDNS dashboard against the toggles the README marks enabled or disabled, and read the linked issue threads for Threat Intelligence Feeds and Cryptojacking Protection, since the guide's advice there is conditional on which blocklists you run.

## FAQ

### What are the best settings for NextDNS according to yokoffing/NextDNS-Config?

The guide marks DNS Rebinding Protection, IDN Homograph Attacks Protection, Typosquatting Protection, DGA Protection, Block Dynamic DNS Hostnames, Block Parked Domains, Block Newly Registered Domains and the curated TLD list as enabled, while leaving AI-Driven Threat Detection, Google Safe Browsing and Cryptojacking Protection disabled. Threat Intelligence Feeds is enabled only if you do not use the guide's recommended blocklists.

### Is NextDNS abandoned?

The repository is not archived and its last push was on 2026-06-11, so the guide is still being touched. The repository has no releases, so updates arrive as commits rather than versioned tags.

### What is the NextDNS configuration ID?

The README does not define or discuss the configuration ID. It only instructs you to sign up for NextDNS and then adjust the settings in the dashboard, so the identifier itself is outside the scope of this guide.

### What should Configure DNS be set to?

The README does not cover where to set Configure DNS. It assumes you have signed up for NextDNS and works through the security toggles in the dashboard, leaving device-level DNS configuration to NextDNS's own setup instructions.

## Sources

- [Issues](https://github.com/yokoffing/NextDNS-Config/issues)
- [License: GPL-3.0](https://github.com/yokoffing/NextDNS-Config/blob/main/LICENSE)
- [README](https://github.com/yokoffing/NextDNS-Config/blob/main/README.md)
- [yokoffing/NextDNS-Config on GitHub](https://github.com/yokoffing/NextDNS-Config)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/yokoffing-nextdns-config