What is DNS over HTTPS?
DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a protocol that encrypts DNS queries by sending them over HTTPS connections instead of plain-text UDP. This prevents eavesdropping and manipulation of DNS lookups, improving user privacy and security.
How Does DNS over HTTPS Work?
Traditional DNS queries are sent in plain text, allowing anyone on the network path (ISPs, network administrators, or attackers) to see which domains a user is visiting and potentially modify the responses. DNS over HTTPS encrypts these queries within standard HTTPS traffic, making them indistinguishable from regular web browsing. This prevents DNS-based surveillance, censorship, and man-in-the-middle attacks on DNS resolution.
Major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge support DNS over HTTPS, and public DNS resolvers like Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and Google (8.8.8.8) provide DoH endpoints. For web hosting, DoH primarily affects how users resolve your domain name rather than your server configuration. However, hosting administrators should be aware that DoH can bypass network-level DNS filtering and may require updated monitoring approaches. DNS over TLS (DoT) is a related protocol that encrypts DNS traffic using TLS on a dedicated port (853).