Given how much we use Google to search, check our emails, store our files and documents and photos in the cloud, it’s safe to say that Google knows a ton about us, but at the same time it seems that Google wants to keep your privacy intact, or at least as much as possible, thanks to an upcoming feature that they plan to implement into Android.
Spotted by the folks at XDA, it looks like Google is introducing a “DNS over TLS” feature to Android based on several commits that have been added to the AOSP. For those unfamiliar, a DNS is what translates a website’s address into an address that your computer connects to, so in essence you could consider domain names to be like a “mask” or a “cover” to help make it easier to remember, versus trying to remember a series of numbers.
With this upcoming feature, what it does is that DNS queries will now be encrypted to the same level as HTTPS, which means that a DNS cannot log or see the websites you visit, thus preventing hackers or even your ISP from seeing what kind of websites you are viewing, although the requirement here is that the DNS you use will need to have DNS over TLS support (you can always use Google’s DNS if you prefer).
However as XDA points out, the feature won’t provide full privacy as your ISP will still be able to see the IP address you are connecting to, but we suppose it is a start and ife you’d rather not subscribe to VPN services, we suppose this could be the next best thing.