On a weekend, I opened v2ex using Google Chrome, hoping to swim in the ocean of knowledge, but it popped up with 'Unable to find the server's IP address.' However, other browsers could access it normally. At first, I thought it was a school network issue, but since I could use other browsers, I just made do. Until recently, when I got home, I found that Google Chrome still couldn't access v2ex. And it wasn't just v2ex; even some of the legitimate websites in my bookmarks were inaccessible.

Could I just let this slide? Initially, I thought it might be a DNS setting issue on my computer. I tried changing a few DNS settings, but that didn't work. Then I updated the browser, but that didn't help either. I reset the browser, but still no luck. With no other options, I had to search online for answers.

Sure enough, the answers I found on Baidu were all copies of each other. The remaining suggestions were either to reset the computer's network, to stop using Google Chrome, or to check for proxy issues. I tried everything I could find, but nothing worked.

Out of options, I had to figure it out myself. Since other browsers could access the sites, my computer's DNS must be fine, so it had to be a Google Chrome issue. I suddenly remembered seeing a recommendation for using Alibaba Cloud's public DNS in a plugin. Could that be the cause?

I found and turned off the 'Use secure DNS' option in the browser, restarted it, and finally, I could access the web pages normally.

In the end, using Alibaba Cloud's public DNS did make web page resolution a bit faster, but most of the time, I couldn't really tell the difference. Moreover, it caused some websites (like v2ex and the campus network login page) to be inaccessible. For me, the drawbacks outweighed the benefits, so I gave it up. As for why resetting the browser didn't work, it was because I logged back into my Google account immediately after resetting, and all the settings were synced back... So, reinstalling (resetting) can indeed solve 99% of the problems.