Lion Cipher Lab
Encrypt your DNS with DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS
- Foundations
- Beginner
- ~25 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
Every time you open a website, your device first asks a name-lookup service — DNS — for that site's address, and by default that question travels in plain text. Anyone who can see your traffic — the coffee-shop Wi-Fi, your internet provider, whoever runs the network — can read the name of every site you visit, even when the site itself uses HTTPS. Encrypting your DNS closes that leak in a few minutes of settings changes, on devices you already own, and it protects everyone who uses them. It is one of the highest-value, lowest-effort privacy steps a non-expert can take.
What you'll learn
- what DNS is
- DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH)
- DNS-over-TLS (DoT)
- choosing a resolver
- browser and OS privacy settings
- verifying encrypted DNS
Steps in this lab
- First, what DNS actually is
- Why plain DNS leaks every site you visit
- What DoH and DoT actually do
- Pick a resolver you trust
- Turn it on in your browser
- Turn it on for the whole device (operating system)
- Prove it is actually encrypted
- Why this small change is worth doing