Private browsing is practically a utopia: the large Internet companies market with our data and browsing habits as the main method to increase their sources of income. As users concerned about our privacy that we should be, there is a type of tracking that is much more difficult for us to evade than the rest, and it is the one that performs our own internet provider.
It is what is known as ISP tracking: as there is no law preventing it, ISPs (Anglo-Saxon acronym for Internet Service Provider) or Internet service providers can obtain our browsing history and “spy” on our online activity without too many complications. How do they do that?
What is DNS over HTTPS?
When we type the name of a web page in the browser, it obtains its IP address through a DNS server. It is an essential element to be able to surf the web, and unless we have it configured in another way, it is normal that this vital DNS service is offered by the Internet provider with which we have contracted the line (Movistar, Vodafone, etc).
This means that the company that gives us access to the Internet knows perfectly what pages we visit and what we do on them, so it is extremely easy for them to create a profile of what our “virtual self” would be. The best way to avoid this is to configure a navigation that uses DNS over HTTPS, which ensures that our data remains encrypted at all times, avoiding spies and attacks of the type man-in-the-middle.
How to block ISP tracking by activating encrypted browsing
For just over a year, Google and the Mozilla Foundation have been working together to promote the use of secure DNS services over HTTPS. Although the project has not yet been officially presented, it can already be tested in the Firefox browser, which offers encryption technology and an encrypted DNS provider.
For this they have also reached an agreement with Cloudflare (which is the one who offers the DNS) so that all the data collected during browsing is purged and cannot be sold to third parties. Mozilla is currently working to reach agreements with other encrypted DNS providers under the same premise.
Configure DNS via HTTPS in Firefox
- Click on the button "Open menu”Shaped like a hamburger located in the upper right hand corner of the browser. Click on "Choices”.
- In the "General" tab, scroll down to the section "Network Configuration"And select"Set up”.
- In the "Connection Settings" window, check the box "Enable DNS over HTTPS”.
How to configure DNS over HTTPS in Chrome
To browse Chrome using Cloudflare's encrypted DNS, the first thing we need to do is create a shortcut to Chrome on the desktop. Whenever we want to use DNS over HTTPS we will use this direct access.
- Right click and open the properties of the Chrome shortcut you just created.
- In the "Direct access" tab, go to the "Destination" field, add the following code at the end, leaving a space at the beginning.
–Enable-features = »dns-over-https
After doing this, we save the changes and restart the computer. We can check if Chrome has correctly loaded Cloudflare's DNS by accessing //1.1.1.1/help. We can also use other public HTTPS DNS servers like the ones that appear in this other READY.
How to set DNS over HTTPS on Android
Most mobiles allow us to edit the DNS servers, but considering that we are going to use Cloudflare's servers, the easiest thing is to download their application. Once installed, we activate it and we can start browsing under the platform's DNS 1.1.1.1, with the possibility of even using a free VPN connection.
Download QR-Code 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer Internet Developer: Cloudflare, Inc. Price: Free As you can see, there are several methods to configure DNS different from those offered by our Internet provider by default. If we do not want to go around configuring the new DNS application by application, we can also do it globally on the PC as explained in THIS OTHER TUTORIAL.
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