Receiver DNS vs router DNS: which is safer?

There are two places you could point at Retune·FM — the receiver, or your whole router. We deliberately guide only the receiver method (plus advanced, domain-only overrides). Here’s why.

On the receiver (recommended)

Setting the DNS on the receiver affects only the receiver. Every phone, laptop and smart device on your network keeps its normal DNS. It’s the most contained option, and the one we recommend. The only catch: a few receivers don’t offer a manual DNS field.

Why we don’t point the whole router at us

Aiming your router’s DNS entirely at a single server makes every device on the network depend on it. One typo in the address, or that server being briefly unreachable, can break normal browsing across the whole house — not just Internet Radio. For most people that trade-off isn’t worth it, so we no longer publish a whole-router guide.

The privacy-preserving middle ground

On a Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, OpenWrt, MikroTik or pfSense, you can add a local override for just the radio domains — network-wide convenience without sending everything else through us. See the advanced setup guides.

Bottom line: set the DNS on the receiver. If you already run your own DNS server, add an override for just the radio domains. We don’t recommend pointing your whole router at us.