Mozilla wants to enable DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) in Firefox for all users around the world, but wants to hear from ISPs, governments, and companies first.
Mozilla today opened a public discussion thread about ways it could enable support for the controversial privacy-focused DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) protocol in Firefox.
Mozilla's decision to publicly open such a discussion topic comes after the criticism the company received last year in the UK for its plans to support DoH in Firefox.
UK government officials, law enforcement agencies , and local ISPs criticized Mozilla for developing and wanting to deploy DoH, a feature they said could help suspects bypass enterprise firewalls and parental control blocks
All of last year's chaos was caused by DoH, a web protocol developed as an alternative to the classic DNS (Domain Name System). DoH works by encrypting DNS queries (which are usually sent in clear text) and hiding them within regular HTTPS web traffic.
When deployed in browsers like Firefox, the protocol allows users to hide websites accessed by third-party observers, such as internet service providers (ISPs) and enterprise traffic management solutions
Although the protocol has many benefits for users' individual privacy, ISPs and law enforcement agencies have spoken out against it, with the loudest and most concerted voices coming from the UK. Some criticism has also come from US authorities, but this has not been to the same level as that of the UK, and many US have eventually set up their own DoH servers.
Nevertheless, the pressure exerted on Mozilla by the UK bore fruit and the company eventually relented and agreed to delay the “deployment” of DoH in the UK.
Instead, Mozilla has enabled DoH for all Firefox users in the US, where the browser maker has been testing the feature on a wide scale since February of this year.
However, Mozilla always planned to release DoH to all its users around the world.
The current period of discussion among all stakeholders will help avoid future issues with the development of the DoH.
Interested parties have from November 19, 2020, to January 4, 2021, to submit their views, which Mozilla said it intends to take into account as long as they are reasonable and have the interests of users .
However, not much is expected to change. Mozilla has already addressed most of the criticisms of DoH since last year.
However, regardless of these updates on how DoH works in Firefox, Mozilla still wants to hear from companies and governments about the issues surrounding DoH before enabling the feature for all users.
