Captive Portal and DNS

[kapyaar]

Testing captive portal on ESP32 Dev Module, with latest git version:

I set a Manual public DNS (like 8.8.8.8) on my Mac, and Automatic for a windows 11 laptop as well as iphone. With that, If I connect to an ESP32 softAP with captive portal using

IPAddress apIP(192,168,4,1);
IPAddress netMask(255,255,255,0);
WiFi.SoftAPConfig(apIP,apIP,netMask);

the captive portal does not open on Mac or windows, but it does open on iphone. If I go to 192.168.4.1, it does open the CP page.
On windows, the dns server (from network properties) is already set to 192.168.4.1, but still wont open CP automatically. On Mac, It shows 8.8.8.8 as the DNS for the softAP network. if I set the DNS on my MAC to 192.168.4.1, then the captive portal opens automatically.

Now, If I switch the code to add DNS, with the following

IPAddress lease_start(192.168.4.2);
WiFi.SoftAPConfig(apIP,apIP,netMask,lease_start,apIP);

I would have thought that if I connect the Mac to this softAP, the device would use 192.168.4.1 as the DNS, and would open the captive portal. But It does not. If I go check on the network properties for the softAP,
On a Mac, It still says 8.8.8.8 as the DNS for the softAP, and does not open CP automatically. (manually, yes)
On Win11, it says IPV4 DNS Servers: 192.168.4.1 (unencrypted), still, CP does not open automatically. (manually, yes)
On iPhone, it says router: 192.168.4.1, and CP opens automatically. but iphone opens CP even with the first method too.

Anyone else seeing similar behaviour? Is this expected behaviour? I am using Brave as default browser on all three devices.