Woah, that looks like an great effort! Never seen before, wonder why they're not making more noise about it and/or use it for more services, probably would have come across it while poking at various EU services DNS configs if so, but haven't so far.

Anyone happen to know exactly what the "Protective" option is for/does? I see there is one "Unfiltered", and lots of "Protective + Something" options, which is kind of clear what they do, but just "Protective", what does that mean in practice? Couldn't find any concrete information except "It protects you".

Its fairly new, as in June/July 2025, so I imagine they want to iron out the bugs before letting opening the floodgates.

If you check dns0.eu (free dns service for EU provided by the company behind NextDNS), it says they’ve closed down, and refer to DNS4EU or NextDNS.

As for what the different categories cover, they have the block lists they use linked “somewhere” on their page.