How to Enable More Secure DNS Over HTTPS in Firefox Before Mozilla Does It

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Mozilla will enable Firefox DNS over HTTPS (DoH) by default for all users at some point in late September. Here’s why it’s important: DoH keeps your browsing privacy and security safe by hiding DNS requests – from your ISP, software on your system (like parental control apps or other blocking software), and anything else that might try. find out what you like your government censorship mechanisms for web browsing.

DoH will soon become the default feature for a small subset of Firefox users once the update is deployed, and wider deployments when everything is confirmed to work without issue. This feature is also available right now in Firefox browsers for those who don’t want to wait – all it takes is a few tweaks in the settings menu:

  1. Open a new Firefox tab on your desktop.
  2. Enter “about: preferences # general” in the address bar and press Enter.
  3. Scroll down to Network Settings and click Settings.
  4. Scroll down and check the box next to Enable DNS over HTTPS.
  5. Once enabled, you can configure the settings of your DNS provider. Click the dropdown and select Cloudflare to use the default provider and DNS settings we suggest for the regular user, or select Custom to manually configure your own if you have a separate service that you want to use. (Be that as it may, one of the reasons Cloudflare and Mozilla have teamed up is because Cloudflare agreed to collect as little traffic data as possible from Firefox users.)

The above steps are the “easy way” to enable DNS over HTTPS in Firefox; there is also a more sophisticated way that allows you to tinker with settings on the go.

  1. On a new Firefox tab, type “about: config” in the address bar and press Enter. You will be prompted with a warning that not following these settings could void your warranty and make Firefox unstable – both are true – but go ahead, accept the warning, and continue anyway.
  2. Find “network.trr.mode” and set it to one of the following numbers: 5: DoH disabled (default setting); 3: DoH is enabled, normal DNS is disabled; 2: DoH is enabled, normal DNS is saved as a backup; 1: DoH and regular DNS are enabled, but Firefox will decide which one to use for each website. For now, we recommend using a value of 2 as it gives priority to DoH, but you are free to use one of the others if you like.
  3. Then go to “network.trr.uri”. To use the default Firefox DoH service, set the URL to “mozilla.cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query.$”. If you have another service, use its address.
  4. Finally, find “network.trr.bootstrapAddress”. Enter the numeric IP address of the DoH DNS resolver. The default Cloudflare / Mozilla address is 1.1.1.1, but you will need to find the IP address of your specific service if you are using something else.
  5. Restart Firefox for the changes to take effect and DoH should now be enabled.

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