Mozilla has announced that it is partnering with NextDNS in order to help boost the privacy and security of its users. NextDNS joins Cloudflare as a member of Firefox’s Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) program which was launched in order to bolster DNS security and privacy.
Domain Name Systems (DNS) figure out which IP to direct your browser to based on the URL that you type in. This old technology has some drawbacks though such as DNS providers knowing what you’re browsing and the possibility of a middle man intercepting the request and pointing your browser elsewhere – many DNS-based parental controls use this technique to block access to websites.
As part of the TRR, NextDNS has to comply with a few rules that Mozilla has laid out including that data will only be used for operating the service and that it must be deleted after 24 hours. The TRR also states that the data cannot be sold, shared, or licensed to other parties, ensuring user privacy. One concern raised by opponents of DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) is that it interferes with parental controls. According to the TRR, Mozilla says that partners should allow a user to opt-in to filtering thus allowing parents to set up parental controls on their children’s devices.
Commenting on the news, Eric Rescorla, Firefox CTO, said:
“For most users, it’s very hard to know where their DNS requests go and what the resolver is doing with them. Firefox’s Trusted Recursive Resolver program allows Mozilla to negotiate with providers on your behalf and require that they have strong privacy policies before handling your DNS data. We’re excited to have NextDNS partner with us in our work to put people back in control of their data and privacy online.”
Mozilla said that it looks forward to bringing more partners into the TRR program in order to lift the DNS system into the 21st century with privacy and security protections that users expect.
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