While sophisticated users can turn to cloud-based “open resolvers” that offer better privacy controls than what is available by default from most internet service providers (ISPs), these resolvers rely on the same old unencrypted protocols so ISPs can often intercept data anyway. DNS lookups are sent to servers that can spy on your website browsing history without either informing you or publishing a policy about what they do with that information. Because there is no encryption, other devices along the way might collect (or even block or change) this data too. This approach is no longer a fit for the modern Internet. DNS hails from the days of a kinder, more gentle Internet where it was normal to make this kind of query using unencrypted protocols and send them to any nearby server who claimed to be able to answer it.

Firefox cannot do much without the service. Browsers (including Firefox) use DNS to access a distributed database that turns URLs into TCP/IP addressing information.

On the Firefox network and security teams, we’re working to change that by encrypting DNS queries and by testing a service that keeps DNS providers from collecting and sharing your browsing history.įor more than 30 years, DNS has served as a key mechanism for accessing sites and services on the web. Domain Name Service (DNS) is one of the oldest parts of internet architecture, and remains one that has largely been untouched by efforts to make the web safer and more private.

Undo firefox update 2018