Over the last few years, Google and Microsoft have been putting a lot of effort into improving user privacy, especially after Apple made privacy a selling point. Google brought the option to change system-wide DNS settings with Android 9, and Microsoft added this option to Windows 10 in 2020. Even Mozilla now enables DNS over HTTPS by default in the web browser. So, if you want to protect your privacy on the web, go ahead and turn on DNS over HTTPS in Windows 11. This is a system-wide relay, so all communication between your PC and DNS server will be encrypted. So without any delay, let’s check what it is and the activation steps.
Turn On DNS Over HTTPS in Windows 11 (2021)
In this article, we talked about the steps to turn on DNS over HTTPS (DoH) along with an explanation of what DoH is and why you should enable it on your Windows 11 computer.
What Is DNS Over HTTPS and Why Should You Enable It in Windows 11?
If you don’t have any prior knowledge of DNS over HTTPS, it’s nothing to worry about. Here we give you a brief explanation of DoH and an explanation of why you should enable it.
When you visit a website, your computer does not know the website’s domain name (such as google.com). It asks a DNS server using the domain/IP address of the website (for example – 142.250.196.78) for google.com and asks it to point to the correct domain name, then returns the result. This communication between your computer and DNS server has traditionally remained unencrypted. This is changing now.
To be clear, whatever you do on a website, such as navigating the website or performing an action, remains encrypted as it is an HTTPS website. This means that no one, not even the ISP, knows what you are doing on the website. However, DNS queries are largely unencrypted, which means your ISP or anyone else on the local network can at least know which website you’re visiting.
Now, DNS over HTTPS feature has been introduced to bring encryption to DNS queries. Basically, even when retrieving the domain name from the DNS server, queries will be encrypted using the HTTPS protocol.
Not only that, with DNS over HTTPS system-wide, all apps and programs in Windows 11 will also use DoH to talk to DNS. This will protect DNS communication on your entire PC, not just web browsers. So, if you want to enable DNS over HTTPS on your Windows 11 PC, follow the steps below.
How To Turn On DNS Over HTTPS In Windows 11[EasiestMethod[EasiestMethod][EnKolayYöntem[EasiestMethod
1. Open the Settings app and select “Network and internet” section from the left sidebar. Next, click on “Wi-Fi” or “Ethernet” depending on your internet connection in the right pane.
2. Then, “Hardware specifications“.
3. Here, “To organiseNext to “DNS server assignment”.
4. From the top drop-down menu “ManualTurn on ” and “IPv4”.
5. Under Preferred and Alternate DNS fields, Enter your DNS selection. You can check out our list of the best DNS servers from the linked article. We use Google’s DNS server. 8.8.8.8
and alternate DNS 8.8.4.4
. There are also popular alternatives like Cloudflare and OpenDNS to choose from.
6. Finally, click the drop-down menu under “Preferred DNS encryption” to turn on DNS over HTTPS in Windows 11 and select “Encrypted only (DNS over HTTPS)” option. Follow the same steps for “Alternate DNS encryption”. For IPv6 you don’t need to do anything.
7. After that, click on “.Save” to save the changes and you are done.
You have successfully enabled DNS over HTTPS on your Windows 11 PC. All communication between your computer and DNS server will now be encrypted and no one will be able to access your DNS queries.
Secure Web Communication on Windows 11 with DNS over HTTPS
So you can enable DNS over HTTPS in Windows 11 to encrypt DNS queries from your computer. As you know, web surveillance is increasing day by day and it is absolutely essential for users to protect their privacy, when it is as simple as a DNS query. Anyway, that’s it for us. If you are facing network discovery problem in Windows 11, follow our linked guide to fix the problem right away. And if you have any questions, comment below and let us know.