Fun fact, if you have an iPhone or an Android phone that is not rooted, you use DNS to block ads. I use uBlock Lite on my iPhone. On my Android phone, I actually don't bother with DNS ad blocking. It's a backup phone. But bet your ass my browser is Firefox and it has uBlock Origin on it. When I ran rooted Android, I used AdAway to keep my HOSTS file up to date. You can't do that without root, though. At least AFAIK.

If you use Google apps on either platform, they use the Google DNS. This is normal, it's even a fair play, really. The issue is when you're on an iPhone and you use the Google (search) app. Even though you're "just" searching, it's tunneling around your ad blocker to insert ads on your device (or more specifically, to allow them through). Ads can carry ransomware and other malware (good luck executing it on an iPhone, but regardless, Google doesn't care about your device, only their shareholders) so that's obviously a problem. The solution is to search via Spotlight as ~~God~~ Steve Jobs intended; even if Google is your search engine (it is the default — on mine it's DuckDuckGo), it will still use your ad blocking DNS if that is what you have set up.

So yeah, definitely don't use Google DNS, but be aware Google apps are using it. Fortunately most can be accessed via the browser. But your browser on either platform (as long as it is not Chrome) should be fine.

[–] Engywuck@lemmy.zip 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Android phones have had private DoT since a while. Just slap there your favorite adblocking DoT DNS address. As far I can tell from my logs, even system Google apps respect that.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Do you know what DoT means? I don't.

DuckDuckGo says Department of Transportation, but I'm sure that's not what you mean.

It's a good rule of thumb to spell out an uncommon acronym — especially if you google it and it doesn't return what you want it to mean.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 4 days ago

It's DNS over TLS.

[–] Engywuck@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago

DNS over TLS

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago

Degoogling your phone entirely can be a tough transition as they've embedded their services into so much of our life, but in my experience completely worthwhile.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

When I ran rooted Android, I used AdAway to keep my HOSTS file up to date. You can't do that without root, though. At least AFAIK.

you can, not with adaway but others like rethink dns that function as a VPN, without actually using a VPN provider.

when you do that, you can't use any other VPN apps. though some (including rethink) have additional functions, like an outgoing firewall, wireguard, proxy support, ...
though if your company requires a different VPN app.. then get a company phone, probably.