📞 DNS Explained Like You're 5

Source: Dev.to

The phone book of the internet

Day 7 of 149 – 👉 Full deep‑dive with code examples

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 don’t understand “google.com”.
They understand IP addresses (numbers), like 93.184.216.34 for example.com.
That’s like a phone number for a computer.

How a DNS lookup works

1. You type: example.com
2. Your browser asks DNS: “Hey DNS, what’s the number for example.com?”

Browser → DNS: "What's the number for example.com?"
DNS    → Browser: "Let me check... It's `93.184.216.34`"
Browser → Server (93.184.216.34): "Thanks!" → Calls the IP address
Server  → Browser: "Hello! Here’s your page."

Why DNS matters

Imagine memorizing numbers for every website:

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

Not practical! DNS lets us use easy, friendly names instead. It translates website names into the numeric addresses that computers actually use.

🔗 Enjoying these? Follow for daily ELI5 explanations!

Making complex tech concepts simple, one day at a time.