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.