Google Public DNS, the product name for the DNS servers at IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, is now capable of handling the more secure DNS-over-TLS specification. The Domain Name System (DNS) is the method, used like a phone book, for translating domain names into IP addresses.
Traditionally, DNS queries have been vulnerable to sniffing and spoofing attacks, but processing queries with Transport Layer Security (TLS) can change this situation.
“Starting today, users can secure queries between their devices and Google Public DNS with DNS-over-TLS, preserving their privacy and integrity,” Google said without stating the obvious – since it’s in the header of your queries, it will know the domain names you’re browsing.
Users of Google's Android 9 version have the option to switch to using DNS-over-TLS already. They need to find the Private DNS setting in Android's network settings and set the DNS provider to dns.google - older versions of Android don't have native DNS-over-TLS support.
To help solve this problem, in October Jigsaw released Intra, an application for encrypting DNS queries over HTTPS connections.
Google also added that Linux uses could use the stubby resolver for DNS-over-TLS.
Google is far from the first DNS resolver to make use of DNS-over-TLS, with Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 resolver using it since it launched in April of last year.
In November, Cloudflare released Android and iOS apps for mobile users.
