Firefox has long been my default browser – first on Windows, then a Mac and iPhone, and now on Android. Even when it used to be a sluggish, memory-hungry browser, I liked Firefox for or lets say I preferred it over Google’s Chrome because I didn’t want to use the latter.
Over the years, Firefox performance has improved and the browser, along with Mozilla Foundation has been a privacy advocate. With the launch of Firefox Quantum, Firefox performance dramatically improved and the non-profit’s fight for privacy has continued.
Expanding its fight for digital privacy, Firefox decided to turn on DNS over HTTP for all users in the US by default last year. Whether DoH achieves what it aims remains a topic worth debates but Mozilla’s decision to enable it by default came as a surprise. With the latest version 82.0.2, Firefox said DoH has been enabled for me as well and the first thing I wanted to do was to disable it because I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I want to try DoH.
Whether you should use DNS-over-HTTPS – a protocol designed to encrypt DNS lookups – is up to you. It should be your educated decision and I will let articles mentioned below explain what is DoH and how useful (or not) it can be. But if you are among those users who were notified by Firefox’s latest update that DoH has been enabled for them and who could not click the Disable button for whatever reason, I will share how to quickly disable it.
- Cartoon intro to DNS over HTTPS on Mozilla
- Centralised DoH is bad for privacy on PowerDNS
- DNS-over-HTTPS causes more problems than it solves on ZDNet
Disabling DNS over HTTPS in Firefox Browser
Disabling DoH in Firefox is fairly easy, although I was looking for the option to do so in Privacy and Security section.
To disable DoH, click the hamburger menu on the top right corner of your Firefox window and click Preferences. Once in Preferences, click General and scroll all the way down. Click Settings under Network Settings area.
Now find DNS over HTTPS checkbox at the bottom and uncheck it. Click OK and you are done.
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