Recently ran into this on my MacBook Air, where I could connect to the internet via wifi on Safari, but I would get an error, “This site can’t be reached” on Google Chrome. That’s weird, right?

DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_SECURE_CONFIG

After some research on search engines, I found my own solution, that wasn’t mentioned on the pages I looked at, while tinkering around, and depending on your settings, this could be the fix you need.

In my Chrome settings chrome://settings/security under Advanced, there was a section: Use secure DNS. I had recently turned that setting on, but apparently it wasn’t working today and stopped my Chrome from accessing the internet.

To fix that DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_SECURE_CONFIG error, all I had to do was toggle OFF the Use secure DNS setting, and my Google Chrome browser is working again.

Error Message in Google Chrome Browser

This site can’t be reached

duckduckgo.com’s server IP address could not be found.

Try:
Checking the proxy, firewall, and Secure DNS configuration

DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_SECURE_CONFIG

Check your Secure DNS settings
Check your secure DNS settings. You may have configured a secure DNS server to which connections are failing.

Allow Chrome to access the network in your firewall or antivirus settings.
If it is already listed as a program allowed to access the network, try removing it from the list and adding it again.