If you are an avid Internet user, you must be acquainted with the fact that most websites are encrypted. As time forges the path to abounding success within the cloud environment, a new wave of innovative software technologies is emerging on the horizon to provide you with added privacy protection, of the sort you have always coveted. Basic encryption is the key here as it helps you keep the snooping agents and prying eyes away from your system. Without infallible encryption, you are providing a public gateway for all and sundry to keep an eye on your online activity.

We are dwelling in an age of social media where platforms are equipped with intelligent bots, known as trackers and crawlers. Mammoth global giants, such as Google and Facebook can track your progress with the help of these trackers, as soon as you click on a link provided by them. Although you have a host of various web tools at your disposal to block those links, there is still a gaping hole which remains open. If you are wondering what it is, take a good hard look at your broadband service provider! Your broadband Internet service provider has more insights into your navigation than any other web tool across the Internet.

They won’t be able to identify your exact activity on a particular website, but they do have a record of which website domain you were navigating on, let’s say, Monday, 21st of February. While, this might not seem much of a dilemma for people operating in geographical locations which aren’t more banked towards marketing, but in a country like America, where most of our bread and butter is dependent on selling, allowing broadband providers to snoop around your data is not a credible option. For example, after the acquisition of AOL and Yahoo, Verizon retained every legal right to use customer information for target marketing and advertising. They can also access their customer’s complete Internet History as well.

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Since the last couple of years, the Internet Task Force has been considerably striving to introduce a protocol to deter online snoopers who are leveraging the official Internet address book – DNS. The prototype is not yet ready to be introduced into the market. However, to back the protocol up, Cloudflare has already launched a service called the 1.1.1.1. Cloudflare, a renowned security service exclusively for the web browser Firefox. In order to access it, one must enable the service on the browser.

A Question Still Lingers…

How do prying eyes probe their way through the tangled web DNS to track an individual’s progress?

Well, the answer is simple, and it lies in how the DNS is designed. Every time you are searching for a domain name using a device that readily connects to the Internet, the computer looks up the domain through the Internet directory using a DNS resolver. Your broadband provider controls the DNS resolver which changes the address into an IP address which your device can then access to determine what you are searching for on the Internet.

Now, this type of communication between your device and your broadband service provider is unencrypted, and the broadband service provider knows how to capitalize on this loophole. Nowadays, VPNs have become pretty common across the market, which is a great help when it comes to masking your identity effectively. They reroute every address which you are searching for to a remote instance which automatically routes the address through a single IP address to your specified search destination. It makes it seem as if you are visiting a single page over and over again.

However, if the VPN is configured correctly, the snooper can still see what information is being exchanged between you and the DNS.

The New Protocol Yet to Be Launched

This New Protocol aims to add an encryption layer between the communication devices and the DNS resolvers, akin to how web traffic is being encrypted today (via SSL). The operator of the DNS resolver will still be able to keep track of the websites assessed by a user, but the protocol will greatly benefit in keeping the outside resources away from intercepting information.

Some similar examples of previous implementations are DNSCrypt and OpenDNS. These services will give you a better idea about what the new protocol is all about.

Cloudflare has come up with a revamped strategy to thwart online snoopers from following users around. Instead of leveraging the DNS service offered by your broadband provider, you can simply shift your operating system’s preference to 1.1.1.1. However, the only condition is that your computer operating system supports DNS over HTTPS. This is only possible if you are using a test version of Firefox, the one that supports the standard.

One thing which I believe will concern many users is whether Cloudflare is going to have access to user’s browsing history or not. And the answer to that question is yes!

When we talk about domain resolvers, Cloudflare isn’t the only name to contend with on the market. The Google’s Public DNS service has also performed a multitude of analysis on DNS over HTTPS encryption standards. Google declares that their DNS resolver does not secure user’s personal information; on the other hand, Cloudflare claims that they aren’t into any form of advertising companies so there is a bleak chance that they would ever want to make use of the customer’s accumulated data.

The test version of 1.1.1.1, however, has led Cloudflare to take an oath of never using their users’ browsing history in any form of ad targeting or reselling it to third parties for marketing purposes. On this proposition, Cloudflare is willing to live up to its promise.