long story short, the CICC gave both Discord and Reddit a day to set up local offices, which, unironically is not the most realistic timeframe to take action. most users who are in one of the mainstream telcos are heavily affected by this as both telcos complied to this.

am i doomed? will i miss my moots?

no, not really, for now. at the moment, the telcos have installed the blocks on their DNS, which means that outside of the three telcos can able to access Discord and Reddit normally due to that they haven’t added the block in their local DNS server yet. so as much it’s a big of an inconvenience, no it’s not the end of world. yet.

the “yet” is because there’s a potential that all telco companies might band together and put out a wide block, even with changing DNS servers, so when that happens, we might hop to using VPNs instead. however it doesn’t seem to be that case as both Discord and Reddit have reached out to CICC to talk regarding about the “safety of children”. and, by that, more unwanted surveillance. i will update whenever necessary.

also if you don’t know what a DNS server is, Cloudflare made an informative post about this.

what do i do now?

for now, the only way to circumvent this is changing your DNS servers as most of people connected are using Globe/DITO’s DNS servers from themselves, showing the warnings in their end. or if you’re too bothered to set it up, go to the VPN route (which i’ll put somewhere near in the end of this “blog”.)

how do i do that?

this depends on platform you’re currently using, so i’ll leave there links on how to do that yourself:

• Windows 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m596Mz9gYMQ
• Windows 10 and below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqTUk5GgmQ8
• macOS: https://support.apple.com/en-ph/guide/mac-help/mh14127/mac
• iOS: https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/setup/ios/
• Android: steps may differ a bit from brand to brand, but it’s usually at Network & Internet/Connections > Private DNS. google search is also your friend, say like, “[brand + phone model] change DNS servers”. if you don’t know what to put in the text box, just use Cloudflare’s DNS with malware blocking enabled: security.cloudflare-dns.com
• Linux: idk, you probably gotta search it up. though I use Control D’s daemon (see their Free DNS section and in the Setup Guide) if you don’t want to go deep.

which DNS server should i use?

note: all of these don’t cost a penny!

the usual ones

• Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1: https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/setup/ - i also advise to use the one with Malware blocking (1.1.1.2/1.0.0.2) enabled, since the speed difference is the same as the one without it.
• Google Public DNS: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using (you probably shouldn’t be using that unless you run out of options)

for privacy-oriented peeps

• Quad9: https://quad9.net/ - heavily focused on security and automatic threat blocking than what Cloudflare does
• Control D’s Free DNS: https://controld.com/free-dns - includes community blocklists for people who probably don’t want to tinker around with NextDNS. personally i use Hagezi’s Pro Plus as it does block ads on apps and on certain phone brands (Xiaomi, OPPO, etc.)
• NextDNS: https://nextdns.io/ - this one is a bit more advanced but it offers you some customization and see where the internet traffic goes. has a limit of 300K requests in the free plan, so maybe good for 1-3 devices.

ok that’s sounds like too much effort, is there an easier way to do this?

yes.

• Cloudflare has its own 1.1.1.1 client both in desktop and mobile with a click of a button. it also comes with their proprietary VPN technology called WARP that uses Cloudflare’s data centers to get shit delievered fast-as-possible.
• Control D, especially in the Free DNS section, has a Setup Guide button that assists you on setting up the DNS. just click Help Me Configure, and follow the instructions from there, especially on linux if you can’t be bothered to edit that specific systemd file.

can’t i just use a VPN instead?

also yes. if you can’t be bothered to do all of the above, Proton VPN is always there as the free tier is more than enough if you only use it for Discord. however there may be stuff like Steam Authenticator complaining why you’re in the different location, so make sure to enable whenever needed. be also warned that X (aka Twitter) might flag you that “Your country is not accurate”, but honestly you shouldn’t worry about it.

also see:

• Windscribe : has a Build-Your-Plan starting $3, which is roughly 180PHP. you get to pick two locations of your choice plus unlimited bandwidth, and split tunneling is not locked behind a paid subscription. has 10GB in the free tier.
• iVPN / Mullvad : on a much bit more expensive end, but offers all locations with just 5 euros per month (approx. 358 php). no need for the credentials like your email address or phone number, as your account is the account number provided to you.