📞 DNS Explained Like You're 5

The phone book of the internet

Day 7 of 149

👉 Full deep-dive with code examples

The Phone Book

Remember phone books? (Ask your parents! 📚)

You wanted to call Pizza Hut, but you didn't memorize their number.

You looked up: "Pizza Hut" → Found: 555-1234

Then you called 555-1234.

DNS does the same thing for websites!

Computers Use Numbers

Computers don't understand "google.com".

They understand IP addresses (numbers), like <ip-address> for example.com.

That's like a phone number for a computer.

How DNS Works

You type: example.com

Your Browser: "Hey DNS, what's the number for example.com?"
     ↓
DNS: "Let me check... It's `<ip-address>`"
     ↓
Your Browser: "Thanks!" → Calls `<ip-address>`
     ↓
Google's Server: "Hello! Here's your search page!"

Why It Matters

Imagine memorizing numbers for every website:

• (an IP address) (Google)
• (an IP address) (Facebook)
• (an IP address) (Netflix)

Not practical!

DNS lets us use easy names instead.

In One Sentence

DNS translates friendly website names into the number addresses that computers actually use.

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