Products · Pattern or everyday thing
DNS
Raised as a usability problem by 25 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2014–2026), in 20 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Hard to find DNS settings; changes in wrong console do nothingUnreviewed
20142026- Hard to figure out how to enter DNS settings across different providers2025-07-22
- Hard to find where to change DNS settings; changes in wrong console had no effect2023-07-28
- Changing DNS servers is hidden and takes many steps on iOS, Android and Windows2021-04-29
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 25 complaints
- Failures happen at random times with no clues, so admins chase the wrong cause2026-01-19
- Hard to figure out how to enter DNS settings across different providers2025-07-22
- European DNS IP addresses are random and hard to remember2025-06-13
- Making exceptions is complex and can only be done per domain, not per site2024-10-11
- Error message for a server not being found is confusing2024-08-20
- Users cannot tell which resolving path a DNS lookup actually used2023-07-29
- Infrequent users can't remember exact record syntax and punctuation when configuring DNS2023-07-29
- DNS tool syntax and output formatting are confusing to read2023-07-29
- One team member stuck on a stale DNS record while others work fine2023-07-29
- Hard to find where to change DNS settings; changes in wrong console had no effect2023-07-28
- DNS tools and software are unwieldy and sometimes arcane to use2023-07-28
- Business customers wait months for approvals to make required DNS changes2023-05-04
- Registrars are unreliable and names are hard to change once chosen2022-07-13
- Must manually copy and paste many DNS records to host email with Fastmail2021-12-15
- Changing DNS servers is hidden and takes many steps on iOS, Android and Windows2021-04-29
- Transparent filtering has no easy way to disable, forcing a console login each time2020-10-26
- DNS is confusing for ordinary users, with varying registrar editing interfaces and caching2020-06-12
- DNS management interfaces are awful to use, making independent subdomain zones hard to set up2019-03-15
- Intro text is confusing and doesn't explain what is happening or its impact2019-01-17
- The page is completely unusable on an iPad2018-03-31
- Results show cluttered raw database output that is hard for humans to read2017-10-26
- Hard to debug, slow, and inconsistent client support for service discovery2017-04-25
- Short names get resolved via search path, sending users to ad pages for nonexistent domains2015-12-17
- T.co links often fail to resolve, and DNS settings are hard to change on mobile2014-06-03
- Mistyped or nonexistent domains show an ad-filled page instead of a clear not-found error2014-05-30