i was setting up cloudflare R2 with custom domain to avoid proxied images through my server and it prompted me to move my DNS from namecheap to cloudflare. next thing i knew i learned a whole bunch of things around domains.

changing my dns resolver to 1.1.1.1 stops my isp from logging my queries, but they can still see every ip i connect to and the domain name leaks through SNI headers anyway.

every dns record has a TTL — how long other servers cache the record before re-checking. if my TTL is 24 hours and i change something, the old record sticks around worldwide for a day.

i technically can’t put a CNAME on a root domain, the dns spec doesn’t allow it. cloudflare works around this silently with CNAME flattening — they resolve the chain internally and return a plain IP. i had no idea this was happening the whole time.

moving dns to cloudflare doesn’t move my domain registration. namecheap still owns it, i still pay them. cloudflare just handles where traffic goes. to actually move everything i’d need to transfer the registrar too.