This is a secure dns and adblocker that has evolved into a great privacy app. Yesterday i noticed it has added support for Wireguard and TOR as well as proxy. The app comes with a customizable firewall. It means you can have secure dns combined with vpn/proxy and firewall in one app.
P.S: I’m not the developer.
If we want to have the bigger picture we’ll also need to read this about rethinkDns :
Is this a free service? On-device firewall is free. The in-the-cloud Rethink DNS content-blocking resolver has both free (public beta) and paid tiers (private beta). Currently, pricing isn't implemented and so the private beta is essentially also free till then.
From faq : https://rethinkdns.com/faq Not here about arguing, people need to eat and live under a roof ofc, even in foss communities, but I think people need to know about it before installing & be dependant to its (for the moment free) features.
Why would you want in-the-cloud DNS content blocking? You’re pretty much passing your browsing history to a private company.
With Android’s private DNS feature it makes it easy to get some form of system-wide ad blocking without needing to rely on an app or have root. I think that would make it fairly popular. Of course this is an app but the root argument still applies.
But what’s the advantage of doing it with some private companies server instead of on-device? Why share your browsing history with them, when alternatives exist that don’t require it?
The on-device ad blockers either require root or you have to use the VPN slot (and have the app constantly running). It all depends on what is more important to you.
I see, thank you for explaining!
With RethinkDNS you can use either on device or cloud blocklists.
Edit: cloud blocklists can be used with or without the app. The app adds useful things like a firewall, logging, wireguard support, etc.
I’m using the in device DNA filtering for a long time since I’m using non rethinkDNS DNS (DNSCRYPT), and it works great, and completely free forever.
Why would you be “dependent” on it in any way? There’s no vendor lock in…
Because if at some point one of its features you use are going from from free to paid, & then you have no money for this (as too poor for it, or the will/ethic to pay, etc) while there are no free forks/alternatives for the service : you have a problem. Not everybody is as good users as us using iptables or wireguard, finding different alternative may be hard to understand for others. For example, as I’m not a good developper : I personnally feel dependant to a lot of foss apps & choices they make. If the matter here is related to privacy, I think it’s important to know that you may pay at some point for it.
BraveDNS İs now RethinkDNS
So is this project part of Brave Browser?
Nope, independent project with a confusing name, hence the rebranding.
I’ve been running with just an optional dns adguard url in my settings, this app is exactly what I’ve been looking for. So tired of having to go into my settings and pause the adguard just to click on a link that happens to be an ad that I’m actually interested in.
Oh dude, this is actually really awesome. Thanks!
Can this somehow be used in the Private DNS android setting?
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For some reason, Mullvad’s DNS doesn’t work on my phone so I’ve been using Quad9’s.
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You can use max.rethinkdns.com as Android’s default dns.
Another app I use sometimes (Time Squared) got a similar UI update recently and I hate it. Used to be a simple app that just worked. Now it takes about 5 seconds just to load, switching to another menu takes about a second. These fancy web frameworks need to get some rest.
I have been looking for an alternative to blokada! it was slowly getting worse over years
Anyone here switch to RethinkDNS from Blokada? Currently using Blokada and thinking about switching to RethinkDNS
I switched, it’s definitely more complicated but it got much more options. Blokada has much more simple UI.
I am also Rethink-ing my choice of Blokada
Note that blokada used to generate unique IDs for users idk about now tho. rethinkDNS has so many good feature I didn’t fins elsewhere. Custom DNS (dnscrypt+option to use custom servers and relays) and block bypass, filter lists (on device or built in into rethinkDNS DNS service), wiregaurd proxy for specific apps of choice and much more. Give it a try.
I’ve been using this for many months and it’s very good. Does exactly what it advertises