Just a few days back, Google revealed that HTTPS use on its products has increased from 50 percent in 2014 to 89 percent in 2017. The tech giant has been trying to push websites to use encrypted connections from quite some time and looks like its efforts are finally paying off.
For those who are not following what we are trying to explain here, on Chrome whenever you open a website lookout for the “secure” or “non-secure” tag in the left corner of the address bar. In addition to the secure badge, Google is adding another layer of security to Android.
Domain Name Server (DNS) over Transport Layer Security (TLS)
XDA Developers spotted that Google is bringing DNS (Domain Name Server) over TLS (Transport Layer Security) support to the mobile OS. According to the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) – which means that DNS queries will also be encrypted as HTTPS.
You must be wondering how is it going to help in protecting your privacy to some extent? Well, DNS acts like internet’s phone book, and it decodes domain names like wccftech.com to machine-readable IP addresses. This process runs in the backend and is not known to the users. Under the hood, it applies to all the websites. TLS hides your DNS requests, but it still can’t promise full privacy as your Internet Service Provider can see the IP address you’re using. To hide that, you need VPN services.
Coming to Developer Options in Android
TLS would make it tough for the hackers to take over a DNS to snoop on users or direct them to phishing pages. The entry in the Android repository reveals that a new setting will be added under Developer Options that will let users turn it (DNS over TNS) on or off. We can assume that if such an option is being added to Developer Options, then it may arrive with the next version of Android, presumably Android 8.1.
As we mentioned that it will protect your privacy to some extent. If a different DNS service provider of your choice opts for enabling DNS over TLS, then they will only see your DNS traffic instead of ISP that will protect your browsing information. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) won’t be able to include queries to the IP you’ve been designated.
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