What Even Is chrome://net-internals/dns?
Alright, imagine your browser keeps a little address book. Every time you visit a website, Chrome scribbles down where that site actually lives on the internet. Next time you type in that same address, Chrome goes “oh yeah, I know where that is!” and uses its notes instead of asking for directions again.
That’s your DNS cache. And chrome://net-internals/dns is where Chrome keeps all those notes.
Most people have no clue this page exists. I didn’t until about four years ago when I was desperately googling “why won’t this stupid website load” at 11 PM before a deadline. Found some forum post from 2016 mentioning this weird Chrome URL, tried it, and boom—problem solved.
DNS is short for Domain Name System, but honestly, forget the technical name. Just think of it as Chrome’s memory of where websites live. Sometimes that memory gets fuzzy or just flat-out wrong, and you need to wipe it clean.
Times When You’ll Actually Need This Thing
Let me walk you through some real scenarios, because this isn’t some abstract tech thing—it solves actual problems people run into.
Last month, my friend Priya moved her bakery’s website to a different hosting company. Better prices, faster speeds, the whole deal. But for like five days after the switch, I kept landing on her old site with the outdated menu. She’d text me “did you see the new design?” and I’m looking at this ancient version from 2022 wondering what she’s talking about.
Her site had moved. Chrome didn’t get the memo. It kept using the old address it had memorized.
You’ll need this when:
Building or testing websites is where this becomes your best friend. You upload changes, refresh the page, and… nothing changed. You start questioning your entire career. Did I save the file? Did I upload to the right server? Am I losing my mind? Usually it’s just Chrome stubbornly showing you the cached version. Clear that DNS cache and suddenly your changes appear like magic.
Those error messages that pop up sometimes—”This site can’t be reached” or some variation with a bunch of technical error codes—about half the time they’re DNS cache issues. The address Chrome has written down is wrong or outdated, so it’s driving to a location that doesn’t exist anymore.
And security stuff. If you think someone’s been messing with your internet connection (sounds paranoid but it genuinely happens), clearing your DNS cache gets rid of any sketchy entries. Fresh start.
How to Actually Do This (Zero Technical Skills Required)
This is genuinely easier than programming your parents’ TV remote. I promise.
Step One: Get to the Page
Open Chrome. Up at the top where you type website addresses, click in there. Now type exactly this: chrome://net-internals/dns
Hit enter.
You’re there. Congratulations, you’ve accessed a hidden Chrome page that most people will never see.
It looks kind of intimidating at first with all these technical terms, but we’re ignoring like 95% of what’s on this page. You need exactly one thing.
Step Two: Look Around (Optional but Interesting)
Before you nuke everything, check out what’s actually there. You’ll see “Host resolver cache” with a list of websites underneath. Every site Chrome has looked up recently and decided to remember.
There’s a number showing how many entries are stored. Right now mine says 63. When I’m deep in a project it’ll hit 200+. My record was something insane like 340 entries—I was building this massive site with dozens of subdomains and testing environments.
Sometimes you can actually spot the problem just by scrolling through the list. You’ll see the website that’s giving you trouble sitting right there in the cache with old information attached to it.
Step Three: Push the Button
Find the button that says “Clear host cache.”
Click it once.
That’s it. You’re done. Seriously.
There’s no dramatic animation, no progress bar, no “Clearing cache… please wait…” message. Chrome just dumps everything instantly and moves on with its life. Very anticlimactic for how effective it is.
The first time I did this, I genuinely thought it didn’t work because nothing happened. I clicked it again. Then again. Turned out I’d cleared my cache three times unnecessarily because I was expecting some kind of confirmation.
Step Four: Check If It Worked
Look back at that cache section. The number should say zero now, or maybe one or two if Chrome’s already looked something up in the three seconds since you cleared it.
All those websites Chrome had memorized? Gone. Next time you visit any of them, Chrome has to fetch fresh information instead of relying on potentially outdated notes.
What This Actually Fixes
I’ve lost count of how many times chrome://net-internals/dns has rescued me from weird internet problems. These are the situations that come up over and over:
That “ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED” error is Chrome speak for “I tried to find this website and came up empty.” Could be the site’s actually down, sure. But nine times out of ten, Chrome’s just looking in the wrong place because its cached information is wrong. Clear the cache, Chrome looks again, finds the site exactly where it’s supposed to be.
Websites move around more than you’d think. Companies switch hosting providers constantly—chasing better deals, faster servers, more storage. Every time a site moves, it gets a new address. Your browser doesn’t automatically know about the move. It tries visiting the old address, finds nothing there, and shrugs.
I had this happen with literally three different clients in the span of two weeks back in September. All of them migrated hosts, all of their sites stopped loading for me, and all of them got fixed the exact same way.
Slow loading is another one. Your internet’s working great, Netflix streams in 4K, but this one particular website loads like it’s 1998. Sometimes a corrupted or outdated DNS entry causes that. Give Chrome fresh information and suddenly the site loads normally.
VPNs and work networks can cause weird DNS conflicts too. You’ve got your VPN saying websites live at one address, your network saying something else, Chrome’s cache insisting on a third option. Everything gets confused. Clearing the cache at least eliminates Chrome’s confusion from the equation.
Chrome’s DNS Cache Isn’t the Only One
Here’s something that confused the hell out of me when I started dealing with this stuff: clearing chrome://net-internals/dns only affects Chrome. Your actual computer—Windows, Mac, whatever—keeps its own completely separate DNS cache.
Chrome has its notes, your computer has its filing system. We just erased Chrome’s notes. Sometimes you need to clear both.
If you clear Chrome’s cache and nothing changes, time to flush your system DNS.
Windows people: Right-click your Start button, choose “Command Prompt (Admin)” or “Windows PowerShell (Admin)”, type ipconfig /flushdns and smash enter. You’ll see a message saying it worked.
Mac people: Open Terminal (it’s in Applications > Utilities), paste in sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder and hit enter. It’ll ask for your password. Type it in (you won’t see characters appearing, that’s normal) and hit enter again.
Linux people: You probably already know how to do this, but sudo systemd-resolve --flush-caches works on most modern distributions. Older systems might need different commands depending on what you’re running.
My approach: always start with Chrome because it’s faster and less technical. Fixes the problem most of the time. If Chrome’s cache clearing doesn’t help, then I’ll move on to flushing the system DNS. No point doing both immediately when one usually handles it.
There’s More Stuff Buried in There
Since you’re already poking around chrome://net-internals/dns, might as well mention there’s a whole toolkit hiding in this section of Chrome that basically nobody knows about.
Go back and just type chrome://net-internals without the /dns part. You’ll see this menu with all these different options.
Sockets shows every single connection Chrome has active right now. I used this once when a website was completely hanging—just spinning forever, never loading, never timing out. Checked the sockets page and realized Chrome was trying to maintain like 80+ connections to this one site simultaneously. Something was seriously broken on their end.
Events is this massive real-time log of every single thing Chrome’s doing with your internet connection. It’s overwhelming—hundreds of lines updating every second. But when you’ve got a genuinely weird problem that makes no sense, scrolling through those events can show you exactly what’s breaking and when.
I don’t mess with these daily. They’re for when normal troubleshooting fails and you need to actually see what Chrome’s doing behind the scenes. They’ve saved my butt on projects where everything should work according to every logical test, but somehow doesn’t.
When Clearing DNS Doesn’t Fix It
Sometimes you’ll clear Chrome’s cache, clear your system’s cache, sacrifice a rubber duck to the tech gods, and the problem persists. Super frustrating.
Browser extensions are frequent culprits. I wasted two solid hours once trying to fix a website that wouldn’t load. Tried everything. Cleared every cache. Restarted my computer. Finally realized my privacy extension was blocking it. Disabled extensions one at a time, tested after each one, found the culprit. Annoying process but it works.
Firewalls can be incredibly annoying. Especially corporate or school firewalls. They block stuff aggressively and don’t always tell you they’re doing it. If you’re on a work computer and can’t load something that works fine on your phone, probably the firewall.
Sometimes your ISP’s DNS servers are just having a bad day. Internet providers run DNS servers that occasionally crap out or get slow. I switched my home router to use Cloudflare’s DNS (1.1.1.1) years ago and it’s been noticeably more reliable. Google’s DNS (8.8.8.8) is another solid option. Your router settings will have a spot to change this, usually under something like “Internet” or “WAN” settings.
Router cache exists too. Your router’s basically a tiny computer that also caches DNS information. The old “turn it off and back on” advice actually works here because it clears the router’s memory. Unplug it for thirty seconds, plug it back in, give it a minute to boot up. I hate how stereotypical this advice is, but I’ve fixed countless problems this exact way.
What I’ve Actually Learned Using This
Been using chrome://net-internals/dns for something like six years now. Here’s what experience has taught me:
Don’t wait until you’re completely stuck to try this. Website acting weird? Just clear the DNS cache. Takes literally ten seconds. Either it fixes the problem or you’ve eliminated one possibility. No downside.
Anytime I change DNS settings for a website—which happens constantly when managing client sites—I immediately clear my browser cache. Otherwise I’ll sit there refreshing for five minutes wondering why my changes aren’t showing up, slowly losing faith in my abilities, only to remember my browser’s still using old information.
During development, clearing DNS cache becomes muscle memory. Make a change, clear cache, refresh. Make another change, clear cache, refresh. It’s part of the workflow now.
But you don’t need to clear this thing daily or anything. Chrome manages it fine on its own under normal circumstances. Only clear it when something’s actually broken or you’ve deliberately changed DNS settings somewhere.
Why This Matters for Privacy Too
One bonus thing about clearing DNS cache that I didn’t think about initially: it erases the record of which websites Chrome’s been looking up. Not a huge privacy thing, but it’s something.
Chrome’s cache basically says “here are all the websites this person has visited recently.” Clear it and that record disappears. Won’t make you invisible or untraceable—tons of other stuff tracks your browsing—but it’s one less trail left behind.
Combine clearing DNS cache with clearing your browsing history, cookies, and other site data, and you’ve covered most of the basic privacy maintenance regular people should probably do occasionally.
Security-wise, if you’re even slightly worried someone’s messed with your DNS (redirecting websites to malicious copies, for example—it genuinely happens), clearing your cache removes any potentially sketchy entries. Gives you a clean starting point.
Just Bookmark It Already
Look, chrome://net-internals/dns sounds way more technical and complicated than it actually is. It’s one URL and one button click. I’ve done this probably thousands of times at this point. Literally thousands. It’s become as automatic as clearing my browsing history or bookmarking a page.