What is the primary purpose of the Domain Name System (DNS)?

• A. It stores files for offline access
• B. It measures network latency
• C. It translates domain names to IP addresses
• D. It provides encryption of data

Answer: (C)

DNS acts like the internet’s phonebook. Its main job is to translate human-friendly domain names into IP addresses that computers use to locate and connect to servers. When you type a site name, your device asks DNS resolvers to find the numeric address for that name, and then the connection is made using that address. This system is distributed and uses caching to speed up repeated lookups.

It doesn’t store files for offline access, nor does it measure network latency. Encryption of data is handled by other technologies (like TLS); DNS itself isn’t primarily about encrypting traffic. So translating domain names to IP addresses is the primary purpose.